


Oracle

by kradarua



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Oracle Dean, Oracle Sam, Slow Build, Warrior Cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 19:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 30,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5837755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kradarua/pseuds/kradarua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was customary for a prophet to be present at the birth of a child. </p><p>Prophecies, like the people they belonged to, often shared similar qualities but were unique in some way or another. Of course, not everyone was meant to slay dragons and rescue princesses. The majority of prophecies depicted an average life with an average amount of joy and hardship. Rarely did a find themselves at a loss for how to tell a mother that her child would suffer.</p><p>“My sincerest apologies, Naomi. I regret to announce that Castiel will suffer great hardships in the later part of his life. Beyond that, I do not know what will become of him.”</p><p>-------</p><p>When the Oracle Dean goes missing, Castiel is chosen to bring him back. But embarking on such a quest almost certainly means death, especially with his prophecy clouded by a menacing darkness. Besides, what role could Castiel, a mere warrior, play in the life of a powerful Oracle such as Dean?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2015 Supernatural ReverseBang Challenge! A huge thanks to my artist aceriee, who made the beautiful pieces you'll see throughout this story. I'd also like to thank my lovely beta Liz! This wouldn't have happened without the two of you.
> 
> Enjoy!

It was customary for a prophet to be present at the birth of a child. 

Anna watched calmly from the edge of the room, out of the doctor’s way and not obscuring the present family’s view. She was young; most prophets did not become active until they were at least well into their second century. But after the untimely death of her predecessor, she had taken up the mantle after little more than eight and a half decades. Despite her youth this was not her first birth, and the mother’s howls of agony did not startle her as they had the first time she heard them.

The family watched on, offering hushed words of encouragement as Naomi clutched desperately at the hands offered from the closest family members. They must have been in pain, their fingers and wrists aching to be released, but they stifled their complaints in the face of Naomi’s anguished cries. Her auburn hair, usually pulled away from her face, hung in disarray around her heaving shoulders, damp from labour. Now and again she would open her eyes and tilt her head briefly back against the pillows for a short break. Then she would take a breath before furrowing her brow, eyes squeezed shut once more with the exertion of pushing a new life from her own body.

Early afternoon had turned to night by the time Naomi fell back against the blankets with a relieved sigh, looking exhausted but accomplished as she watched the doctor quickly examine and clean the baby boy. With her last bit of strength she reached forward to accept her child, smiling down at him and cooing softly to soothe his cries. The family shifted in the room, each member stepping close in turn to see the new child. Quiet words of praise and excitement melted together, until Anna’s voice rose slightly above the rest.

“What will you name him?”

All looked to the mother eagerly, for this was her right and her right alone. Naomi smiled gently at the child.

“His name will be Castiel.”

Anna hummed her appreciation; it was a good name, a _strong_ name.

Naomi looked to her, and the rest of the family followed her gaze. Those in Anna’s path shuffled to make room for her as she approached the mother and child, reaching out to take him carefully from Naomi. There was silence in the room now, expectant and anxious, as Anna looked into the baby’s face for the first time.

Castiel had dark hair, dyed black by the dim lighting, and a soft pink mouth that Anna knew would be perfect for wide smiles. His blue eyes peered up at her sleepily, brighter and warmer than the deep oceans and endless night sky. He murmured when she shifted to hold him better, and she shushed him gently. Placing her fingers carefully against his small chest, she closed her eyes and let his heartbeat speak to her.

Prophecies, like the people they belonged to, often shared similar qualities but were unique in some way or another. Of course, not everyone was meant to slay dragons and rescue princesses. The majority of prophecies depicted an average life with an average amount of joy and hardship: he would live a long life, she would excel at cooking, he would be liked by all who met him, she would be a talented spell-worker. Every now and again a prophecy was somewhat more impressive: he would embark on a quest and win the heart of his beloved, she would be renowned as the best swordsman in the land. More rarely still, a prophet would find themselves at a loss for how to tell a mother that her child would suffer.

Anna smiled, eyes still closed, as briefs snippets of Castiel’s life flashed behind her eyelids.

“Castiel will be a playful and curious child, excited about the world around him,” she relayed to the family. There were murmurs of approval before she continued.

“You picked a fitting name for him, Naomi. He will grow up to be courageous-“

_Danger._

Anna paused as the feeling bubbled up in her chest, but as soon as she sought to find the source, it vanished entirely. Confused, she collected herself and continued where she had left off.

“Y-yes, courageous, smart, and strong-“

_Danger. Pain._

Again the prophecy soured unexpectedly, unsettling Anna and causing her to stop short. But just as suddenly, it had subsided. She frowned, forgetting that the family could see her face. No one spoke, for interrupting a prophet was unheard of, but the silence became tense.

“He will….he will become a great warrior, but…something is wrong--”

_Danger. Fear. Pain._

The darkness returned thick and menacing, spreading over the prophecy of Castiel’s life like ink spilled over fresh parchment.

_Loss. Hurt._

It wasn’t just a feeling anymore. Flashes of violence spun behind her closed eyes, visions of blood and torment and agony, and he seemed to be alone through it all. Such a bright young child, surely he was not meant to suffer in this way?

_Solitude. Sacrifice. Danger._

She could feel little Castiel’s pain and her head ached. She clutched the baby tightly to her, causing him to stir and cry out unhappily at her grip. It seemed to go on for ages, nothing but blackness around Castiel and his once average life. Perhaps he was to die young? But the emptiness, the complete lack of existence that accompanied prophecies of death was not present. She could not see Castiel’s end beyond the misery that had overtaken everything. 

Anna opened her eyes and lessened her grip on Castiel. With a heavy heart, she handed him back to Naomi, who looked worried.

“My sincerest apologies, Naomi. I regret to announce that Castiel will suffer great hardships in the later part of his life. Beyond that, I do not know what will become of him.”


	2. Chapter 2

Naomi never told Castiel the details of his prophecy. He had asked of course, as all children do when they are old enough to comprehend it. 

“Mother, when I was born, what did Anna see in me?” he had asked, bluntly and with no preamble, at the age of two and a half decades. Naomi looked up from her reading and into the sweet face of her son, cheeks still rounded with youth and eyes still slightly too big for the rest of his features,  and moved to stand in front of him.

“A good heart. Bravery. Curiosity,” she said, accompanying the last word with a knowing smirk. Castiel grinned back at her ruefully as she continued. “She says you will become a great warrior, in time. I believe you have a bright future.”

Castiel hadn’t pressed the matter, for which Naomi was grateful. She had not lied to him; Naomi knew that prophecies were not set in stone and did not depict precisely what was to happen in one’s life. Rather they presented as abstract concepts and feelings that required a trained prophet to verbalize them. She hoped that as Castiel grew, the suffering that Anna had seen would fade away. He was still only a child after all.

And so young Castiel’s life continued happily. He ran in the forests, played games with other children, watched the stars, swam in the brook. He laughed and sang and learned to hunt with his friends. When he reached four decades he began attending school where he was taught mathematics, cooking, battle tactics, fighting, medicine, magic, and a range of other practical skills such as mending clothes and starting a magic-less fire. As Anna had predicted, Castiel was quick to understand battle strategy and quickly became proficient with several weapons, and his classmates began coming to him for help understanding a particular stealth tactic, or sought him out when they wished for a sparring partner. Magic was more difficult, but he eventually mastered the basics; healing small wounds, purifying water, and other such useful spells. Mending clothes was unfortunately the one area in which he did not achieve excellence.

On the day of his fifth decade, Naomi presented him with a chest plate she had had commissioned, sleek and sturdy but lightweight, and accompanied by matching arm guards. He put in on only to discover that it was big on him, but Naomi assured him that he would grow into it. Castiel loved the gift, and cleaned and polished his armor religiously. 

At seven and a half decades, Castiel’s studies were pronounced complete. As Naomi had promised, his body had filled out with training. With his broad, strong shoulders and tough but lean torso, his chest plate now fit him as though the welder had cast it with Castiel already inside. When he was asked to return to the school to train others to fight he happily accepted, and wore his precious armor on the first day of lessons.

For the next quarter century, Castiel taught others to wield weaponry, strategize in a crisis, and protect those weaker from danger. He took particular interest in two of his students, though for rather different reasons.

The first was Hester. Diligent and determined, she picked up new tactics and skills almost as quickly as Castiel had. Swords were her specialty; each thrust and swing was executed with precision and finesse, as well as a hidden grace that made her movements appear fluid. Though Castiel knew her to be a warm and open person, he admired her colder, more calculated attitude on the battlefield. They sparred often, and Castiel imagined she would make a fantastic ally in war. He said as much to her after a sparring session one day.

“What are your plans for after your studies are complete?” he asked, drying the sweat from his face with a rag.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” she replied.

“You should consider teaching here; I know many men who boast about their skills, but you outshine them easily.  We could use more warriors like you, and female students especially would benefit greatly from having you as an instructor.” He passed the rag to Hester who took it gratefully, smiling at his praise.

“I’ll consider it,” she assured him.

The other was Samandriel. He started his studies when he was a mere three decades old, but even though he mastered the theoretical concepts involving battle, his own fighting lacked conviction. Castiel could tell that this was someone who would only resort to fighting when there was no other option, and would otherwise not think to take a life for any reason. One day found him helping Samandriel through some practical work with a dagger.

“Show me your thrust,” he said, and Samandriel forced his hand and arm out in an unsteady forward push. The motion was executed methodically, as though he had done so while reading instructions from a book. His hand and arm wavered not from physical weakness, but moral conflict. Castiel gently took the dagger from the smaller boy, and stood beside him in the same position.

“Your form is good. You perform all the correct motions, but you hesitate at the beginning, and lose half your force in doing so. The trick about using this correctly is that you have to  _ mean _ it,” Castiel said, thrusting the blade forward unwaveringly as he did so. He turned again to look at Samandriel, whose eyes were downcast.

“I know you don’t like the idea of causing someone harm,” Castiel said, his voice slightly softer, “but rest assured that our intention in training you to use weapons is not to have you use them on friends.” He flipped the dagger in his hand so that he was holding onto the blade, the hilt offered to Samandriel. “Understand that we teach you this skill because, should a time come to do so, we want you to be prepared to defend yourself  _ and _ those who are incapable of protecting themselves. If it helps, think of the people you might protect when you are training. Train for them.”

Samandriel took a breath. “Alright,” he said, taking the dagger back, “Once more.” He moved back into position, and after another steadying breath he thrust his arm forward, in a well-executed motion.

“Good,” Castiel praised him, “much better. Keep training, Samandriel, and you’ll do well.”

“Thank you, Castiel.” Samandriel turned to leave, waving as he left and looking more cheerful.

The beginning of Castiel’s first century happened to coincide with a festive time in his land. The Celebration of Words was fast approaching, and as the festival drew near more and more twinkling lights, both hand-crafted and magically formed, adorned the houses and forests at night. He was no stranger to these festivities; once each decade, the land celebrated every night for two weeks with music, dancing, readings of poetry and stories, good food, better drink, contests, performances, and much more. Besides appreciating the words of each other, the celebration served as praise for their Oracle.

Each land was watched over and guided by an Oracle who spoke directly to the prophets. The Oracle was revered above all others, for an Oracle had direct communication with the Gods and in addition to speaking to the prophets, could relay messages or requests to the Gods on the people’s behalf. It was said that they most often took the shape of a human, although their features were said to be distractingly more aesthetically pleasing than a normal person’s. 

Shrines were erected in dedication to their Oracle during the festivities, a ritual that Castiel found odd as the real shrine of an Oracle was a sacred place that not many dared to enter. Only in times of great despair did a land send one of their own to an Oracle’s home, and those sent almost always died well before reaching the shrine, either of sheer exhaustion or starvation, or at the hand of one of the vicious monsters that roamed the forests. Nevertheless, Castiel enjoyed seeing others’ depictions of what their Oracle, who went by the name of Dean, looked like. Sometimes he was displayed as a tough, cold, merciless warrior, standing over his enemies. Others depicted him as a kind man with a gentle face, leading children into the forests to play. Still others depicted him as a teacher, a welder, a teller of stories, a dancer.

The first day of the Celebration of Words came, and Castiel parted from his mother to seek out one of his friends. He found Hannah quickly enough, perched in a tree on a low branch that gave her just enough additional height to see over the throng of people to the main stage, where the opening ceremony would begin soon. 

“Hello, Hannah.”

She looked down at him from her vantage point. To a stranger,  they might have been siblings. They had similar dark hair and piercing eyes, warm personalities under tough exteriors. In fact they were colleagues, although Hannah’s strengths lay in medicine and magic instead of battle. What she lacked in her ability with weapons she more than made up for with her intellect. Hannah spent much of her time perfecting and enhancing existing spells and concocting new medicinal potions to aid the sick. She smiled and greeted him in turn.

“Hello, Castiel. Come, join me here, the view is much better.”

Castiel pulled himself up to sit beside her. As he settled himself, Anna took her place in the center of the stage and spoke to the festival goers.

“Friends, family, welcome! Once more we join to celebrate the power, compassion, sadness, strength, joy, and all else that words grant us. Performers: read as if Dean were listening. Dance and fight as if he were watching. Compete as if the prize were his praise.” A wave of cheers swelled and crested over the crowd, and Anna allowed the crowd to settle before continuing. “And to the audience: observe as if Dean were the performer. Listen as though you were his student. And to everyone, please celebrate to your heart’s content during this festive season!”

Anna left the stage followed by a second rush of cheering, and the festivities began.


	3. Chapter 3

Castiel and Hannah had waited patiently on their perch while the crowds filtered out to attend performances and find food. Now, they walked southeast towards the forest. To their left, soft twinkling lanterns revealed the silhouettes of decorated houses against a darkening sky, and on their right, vendors stood behind tables offering savory or sweet treats to passersby. Children scurried past them as they walked, shouting happily at one another about how pretty the lights looked and what performances they wanted to see.

Hannah tugged at his arm after a moment, and he directed his attention to where she was pointing.

“What do you suppose that is?”

Ahead, the path curved slightly left and lead past a small field surrounded by tall trees that marked the edge of the forest. Children could usually be found playing there, chasing each other about or darting in and out of the trees during a game of hide-and-seek. Castiel had participated in many a pretend sword fight on that field, using wooden swords hastily crafted from fallen tree branches to best his opponents. Tonight, children and adults alike wandered toward the field, which was now enclosed by shrubbery walls that were littered with lights and just tall enough to prevent peeking. 

“A maze perhaps?” Castiel replied, shrugging. “Let’s go inside and find out.”

Hannah nodded and they veered off the path and wound around families until they reached a break in the hedges. A green and gold banner hung across the top of an archway, welcoming them inside, and—

“Oh!” Hannah’s breathy sound of amazement was entirely appropriate.

It was not a maze, but a garden. Slabs of stone had been artfully placed to act as temporary paths, which sprawled away over the field and curved around floral arrangements, intricate topiaries, and stone sculptures. Artists stood by their work, glowing with pride and happily discussing their inspiration and technique with their audience. It was truly night now, but the full moon overhead dusted the garden in a silver shimmer, and interspersed pinpricks of magically created golden light provided enough visibility to admire the vibrant colors and attractive shapes.

A smile split Castiel’s face. Warrior though he was, flowers had always held a delicate place in his heart. 

Soon after he had entered school, his classmate Michael had berated him for his love of flowers. Once, he had caught Castiel kneeling down to carefully pluck plants from the ground to bring home to his mother, smiling tenderly as he worked. 

“How can you expect to be a warrior when you’re so in love with plants?” he had snarked, sneering down his nose at the younger boy. The smile slipped from Castiel’s face, and he turned his eyes down as his cheeks flushed. At home, he had asked Naomi if liking flowers was shameful for a warrior. His mother had given him a small smile, before taking the offered bouquet from him.

“It’s important for a warrior to be strong, but it’s just as important to know when to be soft,” she had stated, and that had been the end of Castiel’s shame.

Hannah tugged him down a path, squealing with delight when they came upon a hedge that had been carefully pruned to look like a small table holding a variety of vials, flasks, and other such equipment. Out of each leafy container bloomed a different colorful flower, meant to represent the various potions and magic being studied. Hannah spoke animatedly to the artist, and after a moment of appreciating the piece, Castiel continued at a slow stroll down the path.

He was unsurprised (though no less impressed) to see a multitude of topiaries depicting the Oracle Dean. One impressively tall piece featured Dean riding a fearsome stallion into battle; Castiel could nearly feel the horse’s hooves beat the ground, hear the clang of Dean’s sword. Further along he came across a small scale version of the archway he and Hannah had walked through at the entrance, carved from stone. The artist had even chipped delicately away to wrap a string of roses across the top, and water fell in a sheet from just underneath them, plinking down happily as Castiel passed.

He followed the curving path to the far corner of the garden. The shimmering spots of warm light that littered the garden were not present here; this area was lit only by moonlight, and housed only one flower arrangement. Castiel stepped close to admire it, nodding a greeting at the artist.

Entrancing.

Poets would probably have done the piece more justice, describing it in sweeping lyrical sentences just as magical and beautiful as the atmosphere around them, but for Castiel the one word was sufficient.

Soft-looking green ferns, almost like feathers, stood tall in the center. A vine of flowers spiraled upwards away from the base, their green stems hugging the thin wire that kept their shape. The blooms themselves were a pronounced amethyst close to the center, but the color hushed into a pale lilac as it moved outwards. A flash of silver outlined the tips of each petal, as though someone had brushed thin strokes onto each blossom with practiced haste.

“Did you paint them this way?” Castiel asked the artist. She smiled at him gleefully, but answered in the negative.

“No, but you aren’t the first to ask! Truthfully, painting them would likely have been the easier thing to do, but I value the authenticity.”

Castiel’s puzzled expression must have been enough of a cue, because she paused only for a moment before explaining further.

“This flower is rather hard to come by; I traveled great distances to find a market that could sell me these seeds. As if that were not enough of a challenge, the buds are quite fussy when growing. They require precisely the right amounts of sun and moonlight, or they begin to wilt. But once they blossom, well, there is no stopping them.” She smiled fondly at her piece, the way a proud parent smiles at their child.

“I’ve never heard of a plant that requires moonlight to grow,” Castiel replied, still puzzled.

“This is the only one I’ve known that does. The market I got them from could not tell me who brought the seeds to them, could only guarantee that I was getting my money’s worth. You see, this flower is so rare because it is rumored to grow only near an Oracle’s shrine.”

Castiel’s eyebrows rose in shock. “A real shrine? Not like the ones we make during the festival?”

The woman nodded. “So the story says.” She bent closer to him and in a slightly hushed voice, she continued, “The story also says that these grow near a shrine so the Oracle can find their way home. See the silver bits?” She indicated the softly glowing tips with her pinky finger, “They’re silver now, because the moon is out. During the day, the same spots shine gold with the sunlight. That way, no matter what time it is, an Oracle can follow the glow back to their shrine.”

Castiel grinned, fascinated. Who knew if that was actually true, but he liked thinking that Dean would have a way home, if he ever got lost. If Oracles got lost at all, in any case.

A gentle hand on his upper arm startled him out of his thoughts. Hannah had caught up to him.

“We meet again,” she said, smiling brightly at him before turning her attention to the Oracle’s flower. “This is quite remarkable isn’t it, have you found a new favorite?” She knocked his shoulder jovially, before stepping closer to examine the arrangement just as Castiel had done.

“How is it that the tips glow?” she asked, addressing the artist this time.

The woman smiled, and began her story again.


	4. Chapter 4

The stone corridors in the Prophet’s Hollow were silent save for the soft echo of Anna’s footsteps. Normally, prophets and their apprentices created a peaceful murmur of sound as they navigated between rooms, but tonight was the third day of the Celebration of Words, and nearly everyone was off exploring with friends and family. Those who did not regularly spend time here often thought the building looked cold and intimidating, especially when contrasted with the well-loved, red-brown wood of the school buildings, but Anna had always liked that the stone walls seemed to hold secrets and legends in them, and she felt at peace watching sunlight and lantern light splash against the rough rock.

Her destination was the center of the Hollow. There, an ornately carved wooden podium sat in the center of the room, topped with a richly colored green cushion. In the middle of this cushion sat a curiously shaped amulet which was said to belong to Dean himself. Though she had never seen it used in her lifetime, Anna’s teachers had always said that the pendant was a direct connection to Dean, and someone must always watch it for signs (although what these signs  _ were _ , exactly, no one had ever explained) of Dean attempting communication with them. No physical barriers prevented someone reaching the cushion, but if anyone besides a prophet attempted to remove the amulet, a powerful warding spell would make the thing impossible to lift. It was now her turn to stand guard so that her young apprentice could go join the celebrations for a time.

She was nearly there when frantic footfalls roused her from her musings, and she looked up just in time to see her apprentice Hael barrel around the corner ahead, her blue robes billowing around her.

“Anna! Thank goodness you’re here, the amulet, I don’t know what to do—“

It was clear from Hael’s expression that she was panicked. Anna felt a wave of nerves rush over her; this was the first time the amulet had been anything other than normal in her lifetime. Nonetheless, it was her job as a teacher to handle this with grace and cool quickness, so her voice was calm when she replied, “Show me.”

Hael took off back the way she had come at a run, Anna right behind her. They slid to a stop in the entranceway, but Hael did not seem to want to enter the room. She pointed to the podium, though there was no need. Anna could see that the cushion had been reduced nearly to ash by orange fire, and the amulet now sat in piles of of charred fabric, glowing red and generating so much heat that the podium itself caught fire as they watched.

They had to do something quickly. Truthfully Anna had never been taught exactly what to do in such a situation, but her instinct told her to retrieve the pendant somehow. She managed four confident steps into the room before there was a small explosion of energy. She didn’t have time to react; the force of the blow threw her backwards into one of the pillars at the entrance, and she crumpled to the floor. There was a loud crack as the podium underneath the amulet strained under the attack and split nearly in half, the pendant falling to rest within the broken pieces. Flames licked along the ruined podium, and Anna dully registered Hael’s shriek behind her. 

She shook her head in an attempt to stop the ringing in her ears. Hael knelt next to her now, grabbing at her shoulder and asking if she could stand.

“Anna we have to leave, it isn’t safe here—“

“No!” Anna shoved her away, and stood on her own. She sent a arch of magically summoned water crashing over the fiery mess in the center of the room, extinguishing the flames and revealing the mostly unrecognizable pile of wood. The amulet still glowed defiantly red-hot in the middle of the ruined podium, and Anna tried summoning it to her, but to no avail; she had suspected her magic would not work on such an object. She let out a frustrated sound before addressing Hael.

“I need to get that amulet. Fetch Inias.”

Anna walked quickly towards the middle of the room, and looked down at the pendant. She could feel its heat already, and she steeled herself as best she could. Behind her, Hael hesitated.

“The healer? Why—Anna, no!”

She was too late. Anna plunged her bare hand down into the wreckage and latched onto the burning pendant. She cried out as her hand was burned, but held on tight. Not a moment later, the pain in her hand was forgotten as visions flashed before her eyes at a dizzying speed. Dean was showing her something, through his eyes, his feelings.

The forest, though Anna couldn’t tell where. Dean laughed at a man who ran ahead of him, and Anna felt the laughter bubble in her own chest. The area was bright and colorful, but suddenly it wasn’t. Dread replaced laughter as the world went black around her. She couldn’t see;  _ Dean _ couldn’t see. For a moment the vision stayed black but Anna could feel Dean’s bound wrists, the tension in his arms as a chain he must have been attached to dragged him along, harsh jagged rock scraping along his bare ankles and feet. Vision returned to accompany the sensations, but now she saw dark stone and thick metal bars preventing Dean leaving wherever he was. Blackness again, but Dean was in pain, someone was laughing darkly nearby. There was rage and then exhaustion, and then Anna saw the dark stone walls again. A shaking hand took a jagged bit of rock and began to carve, and the view halted on the messily finished message before the world tilted sideways as Dean fell.

_ Send he who does not burn. _

The pain in her hand returned full force, and Anna screamed. The amulet fell to the floor as she stumbled away blindly. She heard Hael’s voice calling out for her, accompanied now by the soft but strong voice of Inias, who ordered her to hold out her hand to him so he could tend to the wound. Anna opened her eyes and chanced a bleary look at her damaged hand. Her entire palm was blistered and cracked and angry red, and in the center where the amulet had been the skin was burned away completely, leaving a deep hole that was filled with burned blood. Anna was sure that the muscles in her hand would be visible when the wound was clean. She choked back bile and screwed her eyes shut again as Inias dragged a cold wet cloth over her palm, the conflicting sensations of pleasant cool and far too much pressure against tender skin jarring her. She sighed in relief and allowed her shoulders to relax only when she felt cold anesthetic balm being applied, followed immediately by thick cotton bandages. Hael spoke next to her, shaky, but gentle.

“Anna, what happened?”

Anna took a deep breath, collecting herself, before she returned her voice to its previous professionalism as best she could.

“Gather everyone. I need to make an announcement.”


	5. Chapter 5

Castiel and Hannah watched anxiously from their tree branch as confused and worried festival goers crowded around the center stage. The Celebration of Words generally went completely uninterrupted, save for opening and closing remarks, and an impromptu announcement had many quite unsettled.

Beside him, Hannah gasped in unison with the masses as Anna walked onto the stage, and Castiel could not stop his jaw from falling open. Anna’s gait was strained and quite a bit slower than it had been when she had welcomed everyone to the festival. Her red hair fell haphazardly over her shoulders, and soot was smeared across her face and clothes. Perhaps most worryingly was her right hand, wrapped heavily in bandages and falling entirely limp at her side, and the way she appeared to be in immense pain whenever it was jostled. Despite her appearance however, she spoke calmly to the crowd before her. 

“First of all,” she started, somewhat drowned out by the hushed sounds of worry that were spreading through the throngs of people. She waited for a moment, and a tense silence fell. “First of all,” she began again, “I would like to apologize for tearing you away from the festivities. Please understand that I would not have done so if it were not completely necessary.”  These words were not comforting. “I am afraid that I have had a very startling and worrisome vision. It would seem that our beloved Oracle Dean has been captured, and is currently imprisoned and in danger. It is important—“ she was drowned out by cries of outrage and anguish from the crowd. An Oracle, held prisoner? Were there beings powerful enough to do such a thing? Castiel and Hannah shared an alarmed look.

Anna had raised her hands outward in a non-verbal attempt to calm the crowd enough to be heard, grimacing at the strain of using her injured hand. “Please!” she called loudly, “Please, try to remain calm. My vision did not stop there; I have been instructed to send a warrior to retrieve Dean. Tomorrow—“ this time she was cut off by a familiar raucous voice rising above the crowds.

“I shall go and rescue the Oracle!”

Hannah snorted derisively, and Castiel shared her sentiments. The speaker was Michael, the same person who had poked fun at Castiel’s love of flowers. He, like Castiel, was a teacher at the school. Outwardly charismatic and strategic, Michael had always been looked on favorably by others, but in Castiel’s eyes his surface appearance was the best part of him. Underneath, Michael was brash and rather disingenuous, doing things not because they were good or right but because he wanted the fame, the adoration. Hannah had once mentioned grouchily, after sitting through a meeting amongst the teachers to discuss incorporating offensive magic into the weapons curriculum, that she thought him the type not to care if a princess fell to her death from a dragon’s claw, so long as he slew the dragon.

“No, I will go!” 

This voice was harsher, and Castiel craned his neck to see Uriel some ways behind them. He had been Castiel’s classmate in school, and Castiel had never liked sparring with him. There was some advantage to being a cold, calculating killer on the battlefield, but sometimes it seemed as though Uriel did not know the difference between practice and actual battle. He was unapologetically uncaring about anyone around him, no matter if they were friend or foe. He sought power, and valued anything besides claiming the most victories very little. Where Michael would let a princess fall, Uriel would slay the princess along with her winged captor.

“So far Dean’s chances seem pretty poor,” he remarked dryly to Hannah, who snickered in response.

Anna spoke loudly over the optimistic murmurs of those around Uriel and Michael. “Listen! The person I will send is not random. All warriors over the age of six decades, I ask that you come back here tomorrow morning, so that we may figure out whom Dean means to have rescue him. Until then, everyone please return to your homes, and get some rest. Tomorrow the Celebration of Words will continue; I imagine Dean would want that."

The walk home was silent, and Hannah and Castiel parted with grim faces. For the first time in many years, Castiel fell slowly into an anxious, restless sleep. The morning came both too soon and not quickly enough, and Castiel found himself back at the main stage just as the sun scattered light over the treetops. He walked through clusters of his fellow warriors, whispering to each other and wondering aloud what a task such as rescuing and Oracle would entail, if it could be done at all. Through the crowd, he caught sight of Hester’s familiar blonde hair, and went towards her.

She sat alone, polishing the knife she always carried in her thigh holster. She rose her head as he drew near.

“Hello, Castiel.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She was as worried as everyone else.

“Hello Hester. I wish we were here under better circumstances.”

“As do I.” Hester had never been one to beat around the bush, and now was no exception. “The way Anna was talking yesterday, it sounded like she intended for only one of us to find Dean. I can’t help but wonder, is this something that can be done by one warrior alone? Why not send many of us, to cover more ground and keep each other safe?”

Castiel had always admired her practicality. “Strategically, that does seem the best option,” he agreed, sitting in the grass beside her, “but I suppose if one of us is to go alone, there must be a reason. My hope is that Anna will explain herself more today.”

As if on cue, the people around them bustled about to face the stage. Upon rising, Castiel saw that Anna had taken the center. He noticed that she held the same tenseness about her, although today she was without the previous night’s layer of soot. 

“Thank you all for coming. As I said last night, it seems that Dean is currently being held captive by unknown malicious forces, and may or may not be in grave danger. Unfortunately, I only know what Dean knows, and have no knowledge of the goals of his captors.”

Unlike last night, no murmuring broke Anna’s speech; these were trained warriors, after all. Nonetheless, Castiel could see the faces of his peers contort minutely with worry: a brow creased here, a stiff jaw there. He felt the tension in his own face as well.

Anna held out her hand, and from her fingers dangled a thin metal rope, on the end of which hung….a pendant? Castiel had never seen it, and from his distance could not clearly make out what the metal thing looked like. 

“Some of you may have heard of this before, but many of you do not know what this is. This amulet is said to belong to Dean himself. When I held it, I saw the world through his eyes for a brief time, so I am inclined to confirm that. He showed me glimpses of his sufferings, but unfortunately not much could be deciphered about his current whereabouts or state of being. Before I lost contact, he instructed me to find a worthy warrior to send after him.”

Castiel caught sight of Michael slightly right of him, his chest puffed out.

“To find this worthy warrior, the task is simple. You will all line up and take hold of the amulet in turn.”

A few murmurs did break out at that. How was one’s worthiness to be determined by a chunk of metal, even if it  _ did _ belong to Dean?

Anna heard the unasked question and held up her right hand, which was still heavily bandaged. “You may have noticed that my right hand has been damaged. When I took hold of the amulet, it burned me badly. Dean has instructed me to send the person who can touch this amulet without being burned.” She caught the anxious shifting of the soldiers in front of her. “Fear not,” she assured them, “you need not sacrifice your hand the way I have. I will place the amulet into your hands in turn for just a brief second. If the amulet leaves a mark, I will move onto the next person. Please form a line in front of me.”

They took their orders, and shuffled along as one by one each person tested the amulet. Some bore the pain with a brave face, but a few made sounds of disquiet. Judging by the dwindling line, no one had yet been named worthy. A few people ahead of him, Uriel had beaten Michael to the line, and was moving to accept the amulet. The way he gripped the thing before Anna had place it in his hand spoke of his own positivity of his worthiness. It was with fury and indignation on his face that he stomped away, nursing his burned palm. Michael was quick to be next, looking gleeful at Uriel’s failure, but the smirk slid off his face when he too was burned. 

Next in line was Samandriel, and Castiel could not help but hope that he was not the chosen one. Samandriel was progressing well in his classes, but did not have the wherewithal to venture confidently out on his own yet, and Castiel would hate to see him hurt or killed by such an arduous task. He winced when Anna handed him the amulet, but walked away looking quite relieved, and Castiel breathed a sigh of relief himself. Hester went next, and Castiel had high hopes. Hester probably could hold her own to recuse Dean, though maybe that was presumptuous given that no one knew what exactly lay ahead. It seemed to take a moment longer than with anyone else thus far, but finally Hester did pull her hand away with an angry welt in the middle of her palm. She followed Samandriel out of line, and offered him some healing ointment from her pocket.

Now it was Castiel’s turn. He braced himself for a sting when Anna lowered the amulet to his skin.

Pain didn’t come.

He opened his hand where he had curled it around the amulet, and now that he was close enough to see it properly it truly was an odd piece. The pendant was oval shaped, and bore a face wearing a strange sort of smile, with two horns coming out of its head. More interesting however was the lack of any burn marks on his palm. The thing felt warm, as though it had been held against someone’s skin, but not hot. He looked up at Anna, surprise written on his face. 

“Castiel,” she breathed, “Dean needs you to find him and bring him home. Do you accept?”

He answered without thinking. “Yes, I accept.”


	6. Chapter 6

He was to spend the rest of his day gathering supplies and saying farewell to the people he was close to. He weaved his way through his fellow soldiers, receiving thumps on the back and cheers of encouragement as he went, before breaking free of the crowds to find Hannah, Hester, and Samandriel waiting for him. It looked like Hester and Samandriel were relaying the events of the last hour to Hannah; her face was changing from incredulous to worried and back again as they spoke. When Castiel reached them, a pregnant silence fell.

“So,” Hester began, her voice carefully professional, “Castiel, congratulations. It must be a great honor to be deemed worthy by an Oracle.” The warrior’s praise; proud of her comrade, trusting that he would succeed easily, always happy to send her friends off on a mission from which they would not return. Her eyes gave her away though, the grim resignation glimmering through now and again. 

“Thank you, Hester. Yes, it is.” The warrior’s reply; proud to be considered the best, always glad to accept a tough assignment, always brave even when “worthy” in this case almost certainly meant that Castiel would face his death. He gave her a small smile, trying to convey that he appreciated her concern more than her praise.

“Wait, hold on a moment,” Hannah interrupted, voice indignant, “Surely Anna can’t mean for you to venture out alone? People have  _ died _ trying to reach Dean’s shrine. No one even knows where it  _ is _ !” She was working herself into a frenzy, and Castiel shushed her gently.

“I understand, but Hannah, this is  _ Dean _ . Our Oracle is in danger and it’s our job to bring him out of it, whatever it is. Not just for his sake, but for the sake of everyone here. We rely on Dean.” Hannah crossed her arms unhappily, but did not argue further.

“When will you leave?” Samandriel’s voice came from his left.

“Anna asked that I prepare myself today, and leave tomorrow morning.”

His three friends cast their eyes downward, and Castiel felt a lump catch in his throat. One day, and then he might never see them again. 

Castiel shook the thoughts from his head. Right now he needed to prepare, and anyway, he wanted to spend his last day in good spirits, in the company of good people. 

“Listen, I should go and tell my family. Will you three meet me at the school later in the day? You can help me decide what to bring, and maybe we can spar one more time.” He nudged Hester next to him, a smile on his face, and her expression eased enough to smile slowly back at him.

 

* * *

 

Castiel found his mother in her study, reading from a large tome and mixing a pot next to it periodically. She looked up when he entered, and though he tried to school his features she must have seen something in his face, because she came around the table to stand in front of him, her expression apprehensive.

“Who was chosen?”

He couldn’t meet her eyes.

“Oh, Castiel.” She wrapped him in a tight hug, and Castiel felt the lump in his throat return.

“I leave tomorrow,” he said into her shoulder.

Naomi stepped back and held her palm against his cheek. Her eyes were watery, but she smiled.

“I’m supposed to tell you what an honor it will be to die in Dean’s name, but I believe Anna and Dean chose you because they knew you could accomplish anything you set out to do. This will not be your last adventure; you’ll bring Dean back to everyone, and then you’ll come home and I’ll be even more proud of you than I already am.” Castiel smiled back at her. Mother knew best, after all.

“Now go, gather your things,” Naomi said, brushing her hands down the front of her robes. “I’ll prepare some food for your trip.”

 

* * *

 

 

The sun sat directly overhead by the time Castiel arrived at the school. The classes he taught were held outside, as there was no other plausible place to host a large number of students each handling dangerous weaponry, but Castiel’s destination was the armory, a large building on the left side of the grounds. Once inside, he made his way to the far right corner, where he kept his armor tucked away. He took hold of the chest plate, running his thumb over the familiar grooves and ridges. Despite his worry about keeping his life, Castiel could not deny that he was excited at the prospect of taking his armor to battle; so far he’d only ever worn it during sparring sessions and the occasional class.

He gave his chest plate and arm guards a good polish, setting them aside afterwards while he collected other items from the armory. When Hannah found him, he had added several pieces to his pile, including his favorite, a long dagger fondly known as the “Angel Blade” because it was fused with magic, and tended to emit a radiant white light as it plunged through its victims.

Castiel was glad to see that Hannah looked cheerier than she had earlier. 

“I brought you this. A special healing salve, of my own creation.” She held out her hand, and Castiel raised a brow at the squat circular jar filled with a pale blue-green iridescent substance that sat on her palm.

“Thank you Hannah, but do you really think so little of my magical ability?” 

Hannah laughed at that. “I have faith that you can at least manage healing small wounds. I would hate to see you die because you scraped yourself on a twig.” She tossed the jar up and caught it in her palm again. “This is different though. Fast-acting and rather powerful. Use it if you find yourself with a fatal wound; just spread the stuff over the area. It will hurt quite a lot, but you’ll live. Unfortunately I did not have time to make more, so you’ll have to use the whole jar on just one wound. Try not to use it unless you absolutely must, and try not to court death more than once.”

Castiel grinned and took the jar from her gratefully, tucking it into a pouch on the thigh holster he had picked out. Hannah truly was incredible when it came to magic and mixing. “Thank you, Hannah, very much,” he said sincerely.

Hannah helped him carry the things he had deemed important to bring along, and together they left the armory and strolled across the field back toward town. Hester and Samandriel reached them when they were halfway across, Hester carrying a small wrapped parcel, and Samandriel a basket filled with cured meats and freshly baked rolls from his father’s shop. They set up an impromptu picnic right there, and ate and laughed together, discussing the techniques from the last class before the Celebration of Words and recalling their favorite performances from the festival so far. Eventually, Hester held out the parcel she had been carrying to Castiel. He untied the twine and the wrappings fell away to reveal a small dagger, shining brightly in the sunlight.

“It’s made of pure silver,” Hester explained, “We were taught that some creatures cannot be damaged by normal weapons, but will fall to silver ones. Although, I see you have the Angel Blade with you, perhaps you have no need for this….” 

“Not at all, I have great need of this,” Castiel assured her. “The Angel Blade is a fearsome tool, but its size prevents me from using it if my arms are at all restrained. A smaller dagger is always a smart thing to have, thank you.” Hester beamed at him.

At home that night, Castiel allowed the full weight of the task ahead of him to settle in his mind. Dean needed to be rescued - he was their Oracle after all - but it was difficult to reconcile leaving his friends and family behind in favor of almost certain death in the pursuit of a faceless existence he had only ever heard stories of. Still, he was doing this for the good of everyone; they were relying on him to bring Dean back whatever the cost. 

_ “Soldiers are not allowed to take the easy road.”  _ He recited the teachings from his school days to the quiet room around him. “ _ You must take the hard road to clear the path for those behind you.” _

What if he failed? After so much training death itself no longer rattled him, but what if he could not bring Dean back? Not only would Dean be left to suffer until his end, but the prophets would be in the dark and the land would go unwarned of upcoming wars, or famine, or terrible storms, and Castiel could not bear the thought of being responsible for such strife.

Success or death, then.

He fell into a dreamless sleep and awoke just before dawn. In what felt like no time at all, he was packed and approaching the edge of the forest, where Anna, Naomi, and Hannah had come to wish him farewell. He returned Naomi’s loving hug and Hannah’s tight squeeze, and stood in front of Anna.

She lifted Dean’s amulet, indicating for Castiel to lower his head so she could place it around his neck, where it clanged against the metal of his chest plate.

“The people here are indebted to you for your efforts Castiel.”

He smiled wryly back at her. “Wait until I return to decide that.”

Anna smiled at him and pulled him forward to plant a kiss on his forehead.

“Best of luck to you.”

With one last look at the three of them, and one last wave, Castiel stepped between the trees, and was off.


	7. Chapter 7

Now that Castiel was off on his own, the twinges of pain that came with goodbyes had been replaced by an eager anticipation of the journey ahead. He hadn’t forgotten how dangerous it would probably be, but for the moment he was happy to enjoy the bustling of the forest as the world woke up around him. The day was warm but a cool breeze brushed through his hair and rustled the canopy of leaves overhead, and the earthy smell of the forest made Castiel feel at ease.

So at ease, in fact, that he walked for two hours before realizing he really had no idea which direction he should be going.

He walked a little further until he came across a nearby stream, where he stopped to splash some cool water on his face. Even with the shade of the trees, the day was growing quite warm to be wearing his armor. He set his chest plate, arm guards, and the bag of slow-spoiling food Naomi had packed for him on the ground against a tree trunk. The amulet had slipped inside his shirt when his armor had come off, and now it sat pleasantly warm against his chest.

Castiel stood a little ways from the tree and surveyed the woods around him. Truthfully, he had no idea what to look for; neither Anna nor Dean had been helpful in providing a direction. Furthermore, he had no idea how far away the shrine was, or even what it looked like. He was in the middle of the woods with limited knowledge of the creatures who would roam at night, and no idea which direction meant progress.

He scrubbed a frustrated hand down his face. He wasn’t an idiot; there had to be something, some path for him to follow. If only he could find it.

After another few minutes of looking pointlessly into the distance, he surmised that he may as well keep moving and hope to find something. But which direction should he move in? Obviously not west, for he had come from that direction. But if he traveled too far in the wrong direction, he could run out of food and things to hunt, or he could pass the shrine and never know it, or he could simply travel on forever until a creature claimed him. How was he to know which was best?

The only thing he could think to do was to survey the area a little better. He would travel half a mile in one direction, then return and repeat in the other directions. Hopefully, one of them would reveal themselves to be the correct direction, some way or another.

He debated taking his armor and food with him, but decided he didn’t want to travel with the extra weight if he wasn’t going to be making any actual progress. Instead, he tucked his things underneath a thick bush close to the stream. He wasn’t worried about thieves at this time of day, and he had not heard of many creatures that hunted before nightfall, but just in case he had Hester’s silver dagger in his thigh holster, and another knife tucked into his waistband.

After a breath, he took off at a sprint to the east. He slid to a halt after what he guessed was about half a mile, but there was nothing of great interest in this area. No signs about how to proceed anyway. Inside his shirt, the amulet heaved in time with his chest as he breathed, feeling warmer than it had been a few minutes ago.

He returned, took a moment to check on his things, and sprinted off towards the north. Again, he found nothing of particular significance, unless he considered that the amulet still felt warm against his skin. But it had felt warm in his palm yesterday, too.

After once more making sure his belongings were safe, he sprinted away headed south. He let out a frustrated huff when he once again found nothing. 

He was about to start the run back when he felt the amulet slide against him with the movement of his shirt. All of a sudden, it was cold, the way normal metal generally was unless it was being warmed by something. But it  _ was _ being warmed by something; Castiel’s skin was slightly sticky with perspiration, and the rest of him felt overheated. Shouldn’t the amulet be just as warm as it had been before?

He walked back to this things, contemplating. The amulet did belong to Dean, so perhaps the changing temperature was significant in some way? But that seemed silly; he wasn’t a prophet, he had no means of communication with an Oracle. Besides, the only thing that had really changed was his direction, and there hadn’t been any visual indications that the places he’d stopped at were meaningful. If Dean was relying on him to see something only visible to a prophet’s eyes, he was going to be quite out of luck. 

But then again, the changing temperature was the only thing Castiel had to go on at the moment. Perhaps….could it be that the amulet’s temperature changed  _ based on _ the direction? Castiel snorted to himself; it reminded him of a game he used to play with his friends. One of them would pick an object and direct another to it, saying nothing except “Hot!” to indicate that the person was moving closer to the desired object, and “Cold!” to relay the opposite.

Castiel froze in the middle of reaching to pick up his bag, incredulous. Could it…could that  _ really  _ be what was happening? Was the amulet leading him to Dean in a weird version of that same game?

He stood straight again, leaving his bag and armor where they were. On a hunch he ran off to the west, back the way he’d came. The amulet had been warm to the north and east, and cold to the south. If he was indeed on the right track—

He came to a stop, already smiling. The amulet sat cold against him.

Dean couldn’t be directly north and directly east at the same time, so Castiel decided he would move northeast, and hope that the amulet would correct him if he took a wrong turn. 

He splashed his face with water once more before donning his armor and setting out, his good spirits returning. With any luck, he would reach the shrine or Dean or both soon and without too much trouble.

The end of the day came and went, and Castiel paused for a few hours in the dark to get some rest. The second, third, and fourth days passed without incident. By the end of the fifth day, the amulet seemed to be a bit warmer, but it was hard to tell while he was in near constant motion. On the eighth day, the amulet felt no different, and Castiel began to worry about running out of food long before he found Dean. On the thirteenth day, Castiel was extremely happy to come across a brook where he could finally wash himself. 

By the end of the twentieth day he had run out of food. The amulet was now significantly warmer than it had been when he had started, but Castiel was growing dizzy from the seemingly endless forest, and he barely registered the information. That night, he spread the empty cloth bag that had held his food underneath him, and drifted off to sleep almost immediately.

He was awakened a few hours later by a loud rustling off in the distance.


	8. Chapter 8

Castiel shot up from the ground, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. The rustling sounded again, somewhere to his right, but the rest of the forest was eerily still. He was partly covered by a bush, perhaps he hadn’t been seen yet.

Forgoing his armor and the Angel Blade, Castiel crawled quietly behind the nearest tree trunk, where he rose to a standing position. He was still armed with a knife and the silver dagger; as long as the thing wasn’t enormous he would be alright. 

Part of his training had involved sensory deprivation magic, meant to mimic this exact scenario. If one were trained well enough to notice it, there was a slight difference in atmosphere when dealing with natural forest inhabitants versus creatures with malicious or unknown intent. If the latter, the forest seemed to quake silently like it was doing now, aware of an evil presence.

He peered around the trunk; the rustling had stopped altogether, but Castiel was sure the danger had not passed. A thief would have just taken his unprotected bags and gone; this was something else.

Another rustle, this time directly across from the tree he hid behind. Castiel weighed his options; he could leap out from his hiding place and hope that the thing revealed itself, or he could sneak his way along the trees to the thing’s position and take it out quickly. He’d always preferred a sneak attack when possible.

He took his knife in hand and rounded the edge of the tree trunk, crashing face first into—

“Hannah?!”

Hannah sat on the ground in front of him, knocked down by his bulk. She rubbed her forehead, face scrunched in pain and robes rumpled, before looking up at Castiel ruefully.

“Hello. That was quite a greeting, wasn’t it?”

Castiel looked at her warily.

“Hannah, what are you doing here? Have you been wandering the forests alone?”

Hannah shrugged, an uncharacteristic gesture for her, and commented offhandedly, “I followed you.”

“Followed me?” Castiel repeated, incredulous.

Hannah looked abashedly down at her feet. “Yes. A few hours after you had gone, I decided I couldn’t let you come alone,” She frowned at the forest floor. “It’s ridiculous to send a lone warrior on such a mission. I used tracking magic to follow from a distance; I didn’t want you to worry, or think I would slow you down.”

Castiel didn’t have time to dwell on her strange behavior. Another loud rustle sounded from just behind Hannah, and Castiel pulled her by the arm until they were both behind the tree trunk. He indicated the need for silence with a finger to his lips, and kept still. The rustling continued, and a foul smell began to permeate the air, but peering around the tree revealed nothing. This was not a safe place to stay and chat, and he said as much to Hannah in a rushed whisper.

“Listen, I appreciate the companionship, but you should not have come. There is already something here with us, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Hannah shrugged again, looking unfazed. “Maybe it will leave if we leave. Come, I may have found a clue as to where Dean is.”

“What? How? I only have his amulet to guide me….did Anna give you other tools?”

Why would Anna withhold useful information from the person she sent on this mission in the first place? Hannah avoided his gaze and his question, peering instead at the surrounding area, as if deciding on the best route.

“Follow me,” she whispered, before moving off into the trees, just west of the direction Castiel had been heading before he stopped to rest.

“Wait,  _ Hannah _ -“

He swore under his breath. He couldn’t leave her to walk off into the forest on her own, not with whatever was waiting just beyond the trees. He crept low to the ground from the edge of the tree to his things, gathering them quickly and before hurrying off after Hannah as silently as he could manage.

Castiel watched Hannah glide between the trees ahead of him. There was something jarring about having company so suddenly after traveling alone for three weeks; it felt like he was in the middle of a dream. 

When he was close enough, he set a hand on Hannah’s shoulder, slowing her movements.

“Hannah, I’m glad for your company, truly, but we must act carefully. It’s still dark and I’m not certain we are clear of danger.”

Hannah looked at him as if to protest, but eventually she sighed. “You’re right, I apologize. I’m anxious to see if the place Anna told me about can be helpful to us, but this is your area of expertise. Shall we find shelter for the night?”

Castiel remained tense and alert until they were tucked away under a rocky overhang partially hidden by thick bushes. Once they had settled in, Castiel listened to the forest around them and was relieved to hear nothing but the natural sounds of a forest that was home to nocturnal inhabitants.

There was no point in lighting a fire; it would only encourage unwanted attention, and now that they were not in immediate danger of dying, he wanted to get what little rest he could before setting off again. He released a breath, and finally turned his gaze to Hannah. 

Unlike Castiel, Hannah did not appear tired, hungry, or in any way uncomfortable. She sat next to him, legs folded neatly under her and hands clasped gently in her lap. Her robes were as pristine as when Castiel had seen her weeks ago, though how she kept herself so tidy when the only time to wash would have been in chance streams here and there was a mystery to him. Then again, Hannah was far more skilled with magic; perhaps she knew cleaning spells.

She continued to stare out into the forest, face void of all emotion, until Castiel began to speak.

“What was this place Anna told you of? How will it help us reach Dean?”

“There’s a lake. I’ll tell you about it, but first, may I see the amulet?”

Castiel blinked his confusion at her as he pulled the thing out from under his shirt. Hannah held her hand out as if to receive it, but Castiel hesitated. There was a dull thud of…what? Protectiveness, maybe? Something distant pleaded with him not to let the amulet leave him. His hand clasped tightly around the chain.

Castiel shook himself. He was being ridiculous, and lack of sleep and food was making it worse. He held the chain forward to her, and Hannah leaned close to examine it.

“This is the closest I’ve seen it,” she said, hand hovering behind the metal but not touching it. “Does it burn you? I saw Samandriel and Hester’s burns…” she trailed off.

“It doesn’t burn me,” Castiel replied. “Anna said the one it didn’t burn was the one meant to save Dean.” He thought back to his departure, when Anna had worn the pendant around her own neck before transferring it to him. “I suppose it only burned until it found me. I suspect the magic making it painful to touch has dissipated by now.”

Hannah hummed thoughtfully, trailing her fingers over the chain before finally gripping the pendant tight in her grasp, her eyes never leaving it even as it disappeared in her closed fingers.

With a loud yelp she released it, jerking away so hard that she nearly struck her head against the rocky ceiling of their hideaway.

“Hannah! Are you alright?” Castiel hurriedly tucked the amulet back into his clothes before dragging Hannah’s hand toward himself to examine the wound. Angry welts ran across her palm in jagged arcs. “Forgive me, I must have been mistaken, I was sure I had seen Anna touch it without trouble—“

“No, it’s alright. My curiosity got the better of me.” She tugged her hand away, but made no effort to heal her palm. Castiel must have been looking at her expectantly, because she shrugged and continued, “I’ll let it serve as a reminder to use good judgement.”

Castiel nodded slowly, sitting back against the rock. He was so tired.

“You’re exhausted. Get some rest, I’ll stand guard for a few hours. Come sunrise, we’ll continue on to the lake Anna spoke of.”

Castiel was asleep before she finished speaking.


	9. Chapter 9

Several hours later, sunlight filtered through the bushes and into their hideaway, brushing across Castiel’s closed eyes. He woke slowly, more peacefully than he had in weeks, something he attributed to knowing Hannah had kept watch while he was sleeping. He didn’t feel the need to leap into consciousness and survey his surroundings.

Castiel sat up, blinking away the last bits of sleepiness and smiling across the hideout at Hannah, who sat calmly in front of a small amount of food. He really was glad for the company.

“Have some food before we go,” she said, gesturing to the pile of fresh berries.

“Thank you.” Castiel took half the pile and started to eat, pausing when he saw that Hannah was watching him and making no move to eat. “Aren’t you hungry?”

Hannah shook her head, the corner of her mouth quirking up. “I already had some. Please, help yourself.”

Ten minutes later, Castiel had donned his armor and the pair were setting out.

“So this lake,” Castiel began after a few minutes of  companionable silence, “What’s so significant about it? Why does Anna think we might find a clue to recusing Dean?”

“It exhibits prophet-like properties. Few know of it and even fewer have used it, but apparently one can use it to see information about a person, event, location, or anything else much the way a prophet would.”

Castiel raised a skeptical eyebrow. “So…this lake shows you the future?”

“Or the present, or the past. Whichever you ask of it.”

He snorted. “And what does it cost the user? I’ve never known the universe to be so generous as to give away such a valuable thing.”

Hannah laughed at that, saying, “The experience is rumored to be…disconcerting.”

“I must admit, it sounds like a bedtime story to me.”

Hannah smiled. “Yes, that’s what I said too. Even Anna hasn’t ever been to it, but I suppose we don’t have any better leads, do we?”

Castiel nodded, bringing his hand over his sternum, where the pendant hung safely behind his chest plate. He hadn’t thought to mention to Hannah how he had known which way to travel, but he supposed there was no immediate need to. The amulet was significantly warmer than it had been before Hannah reached him, so they were still headed in the right direction. The lake would be at best another step closer to Dean and at worst a chance to bathe and wash his clothes, and Castiel was eager to do both.

Just after midday the trees began to thin, and soon after that Hannah and Castiel stood near the trees on the edge of a sizable clearing. Trees encircled the space, looking as though they had simply been moved out of the way of the lake. After spending so much time with a canopy between himself and direct sunlight, seeing the bright blue sky and feeling the sun warm his skin was a blessing.

Hannah started out into the clearing towards the water, and Castiel followed behind her. From the trees it hadn’t looked like anything special, but the closer they got, the more detail—or lack thereof—Castiel noticed. The lake wasn’t just calm, it was _glassy_. Despite the breeze rustling past them, not a single ripple disturbed the flat surface. There were no birds or frogs or even insects around the water’s edge; the scene was eerily quiet and unnervingly calm.

Once they reached the shoreline, Castiel leaned forward over the water, hoping to see underneath. Instead, he saw the brilliant cloudless sky and the tops of the nearest trees, and his own face peered up at him as though he were looking into a gigantic mirror. The wind ruffled his hair, and the trees in the reflection waved their appreciation, but no ripples disturbed the image, and no water lapped at the shore.

Hannah’s reflection appeared next to his own.

“I can see why this would be disquieting,” he commented over his shoulder. Hannah nodded her agreement from behind him.

“So,” he said, standing straight again and turning to the real Hannah, “How exactly does this work?”

“Think of what you’d like to see, and look below the surface.” She spoke absently, looking not at him but peering intently into the lake, as though she could see the bottom. “For example, it would be helpful to know where Dean is.”

It seemed too good to be true, if Castiel was honest. Why hadn’t Anna sent him here in the first place, if this could help him find Dean? The most likely answer of course was that this lake, however unusual, _couldn’t_ show him where Dean was.

Hannah was looking at him expectantly now, so with a sigh he sank to the ground and positioned himself so as to duck his head under the water. Even this his face inches away from it, he could not see past his own reflection.

Castiel knew he should wonder about Dean, ask the lake for anything on the whereabouts or wellbeing of their Oracle, on the off chance that Hannah’s information was accurate. Before he could help himself however, his mind drifted to his home, and his friends and family.

Were they alright? He was sure Anna and the other prophets would not let the land fall to chaos, but had it fallen anyway? Was his mother worrying herself sick about him? Were Hester and Samandriel still doing well in their classes? What was going on back home, right at this moment?

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before sinking underneath the cool surface of the water. With his head fully submerged, sounds were muffled or silenced entirely, and though the sun shone brightly overhead Castiel would have sworn it was night underneath the lake. He opened his eyes with trepidation, sure it would feel uncomfortable, but he was surprised to find that he could see quite clearly, and what he saw was astounding.

Pictures swam across his vision, though whether or not the images themselves marked the bottom of the lake was indiscernible. It was like looking through a window at seconds-long snippets of people's’ lives.

He saw Naomi, sitting at her desk and scribbling something onto a piece of parchment. She looked weary, as though she hadn’t been sleeping properly, but that was to be expected, Castiel supposed.

He saw Hester training a young female student on how to conceal weapons on her person.

Anna was in a place Castiel had never seen before, which meant it was very likely Prophet’s Hollow. She was reading with a young woman Castiel did not know, probably an apprentice.

Hannah walked between the tables of a classroom, correcting students’ stirring techniques here and there, and helping one young man contain his overflowing cauldron.

Samandriel sparred with a man Castiel didn’t recognize, but by the way they were smiling and laughing Castiel supposed it must be a brother, or maybe—

If he hadn’t already been holding his breath, Castiel would have stopped breathing. His blood ran cold, and he felt tendrils of dread race down his spine, but he kept absolutely still, maintaining the facade that he was busy gathering information.

_Hannah was walking between the tables of a classroom._

_Hannah was at home._

The thing standing behind him was not Hannah.


	10. Chapter 10

Castiel cursed himself. All the small odd things he had noticed but paid little attention to came rushing back at him; the shrugging, the fact that he never saw her eat anything, the blank expressions, the clothes— _ the clothes _ .

He had thought it odd that her robes were so pristine for someone who had supposedly traveled behind him for weeks. But her robes weren’t just clean, they were the  _ exact  _ same robes she had been wearing when Castiel bid her farewell.

Whatever creature was standing behind him now had stolen Hannah’s identity. Castiel felt rage bubble in his throat, but managed to hold still. He had to think quickly; he was going to need to breathe again soon, and even the slightest change in his behavior could alert the Hannah impersonator to his new knowledge. He made to lift his head to take a breath, but—

A hand pushed cruelly at his skull, gripping his hair tight and forcing him further underwater. Castiel tried to force his head upwards, but the creature held fast. He thrashed and kicked backwards, but it must have been standing to the side, because his foot only made contact with air. 

Think, he had to  _ think _ , or he was going to drown.

The Angel Blade lay uselessly out of his reach. He could try to grab for his knife, but whatever was behind him had the privilege of sight, and even if it didn’t see him reach for the weapon it would be able to dodge any of the poorly angled attacks Castiel would be able to launch from this position. 

He could fall forward, into the water. With any luck, the creature would be thrown off balance enough to release him before he passed out. Without a second thought, he threw his weight down and forward.

There was no time to enjoy the pleasant coolness that enveloped him. Caught off guard, the monster released its grip on Castiel’s hair, and he aimed a hard kick upwards toward the body above him. He heard the dull thunk as the heel of his foot struck the thing in the chest, and wasted no time swimming away, further into the lake.

His lungs burned, and he felt a panic that only came when one’s life was truly in danger seep into him as he scrambled to break the surface. The sunlight seemed impossibly far away but finally, finally he felt the wind on his face and in his lungs again, and he felt he could not take in oxygen fast enough. He took a few heaving breaths before turning to face his attacker.

A dark mass headed towards him just under the surface of the water, its once-human-shaped limbs crudely stretched and gangly, sprawling towards him menacingly. He drew his knife just in time to slash at a mangled claw. The monster pulled its arm back, shriek muffled by the water, before reaching towards him again. He kicked away, swimming frantically towards the shore, but the long spindly limbs wound around his ankles, dragging him back under the water. 

There was just a moment where Castiel looked into the face of the shapeshifter. It wore what was now a cruel mockery of  Hannah’s appearance; the eyes were slanted and frosted over, and the face had elongated, pulling Hannah’s pretty features to form a horrifying cackle, the jaw slackened and hanging open in a sickening smile as though one side had become unhinged. The hands, twisted beyond human recognition, dug unforgiving claws into Castiel’s legs and arms.

The creature dived, taking Castiel down, down, down, away from the surface of the water, from his home, from Dean, from life. He could not break free of its crushing hold on him, could only struggle uselessly with his arms pressed against his sides.

As he wiggled about, his fingertips brushed against something cold and metallic against his leg. A hysterical yelp of joy left him in a stream of surface-bound bubbles.

Hester’s silver dagger.

It was still in his thigh holster, and his hand was pressed against it. He wiggled it out of its sheath and into his hand. The angle was tough, but he managed to scrape against one of his binds with the tip of the dagger.

To his surprise, the shapeshifter flinched away and howled, uncoiling itself from him slightly. The place where the dagger had touched was glowing hot, as though it were newly forged metal.

Numbly, Castiel remembered Hannah reaching out to touch the amulet. It had burned her, but he had assumed it would burn anyone that was not him, even though he could  _ swear _ Anna had touched it without harm before giving it to him.

_ “We were taught that some creatures cannot be damaged by normal weapons, but will fall to silver ones, _ ” Hester had said.

Maybe it didn’t burn Hannah because she wasn’t Dean’s chosen savior. Maybe it burned her because it was  _ silver _ .

Adrenaline raced through him as he struck out with the dagger at any flesh he could reach. He would not die here, dragged to the bottom of a lake by some horrible being that had the audacity to trick him with his best friend’s face. The shifter screamed in agony as the dagger flashed across its arms and legs.

Castiel was not going to die here.

_ Slash.  _ His right leg was released.

He wasn’t going to let his land down.

_ Slice, slash.  _ His arms were free.

He  _ couldn’t _ let his land down.

_ Stab, slice. _ He took hold of what had been a shoulder and pulled the monster in toward him.

He couldn’t let  _ Dean _ down.

Castiel met the shifter halfway, sinking the dagger to the hilt into the center of its chest, staring his rage into its eyes, watching as realization registered just before the life faded from its evil features.

The shifter was dead before it had time to howl. Castiel tugged the dagger free and watched the body sink for a moment, before kicking towards the surface to breathe again. He coughed and spluttered, moving gracelessly towards the shore where he heaved himself out of the water. He looked back over his shoulder to be sure nothing had followed him out, and was amazed to see that the lake looked just as it had when he and the Hannah imposter had arrived: unperturbed and glass-like.

He stood on shaking legs, walking slowly back to his things and sitting down next to them. It was ridiculous, he knew, because Hannah had never truly been here, but without anyone else around he suddenly found himself quite lonely.

After he had regained the ability to breathe normally, he went to the water’s edge again. Since Hannah had been lying about what she really was, he thought it unlikely that the lake would provide any useful information about Dean. Still, he felt he had to try while he had the opportunity.

He kept one hand over the hilt of the Angel Blade as he leaned towards the water again. Just in case.

Once his head was submerged, he thought about Dean, wondering where he was and who had him. He blinked his eyes open.

The lake was dark and pictureless. Castiel pulled his head back, and sighed.

He wished he could wait here for a few minutes. Dry off in the sun, relax a little after a battle. But he knew he had already wasted enough time here, so he scooped up his belongings, and started towards the opposite edge of the lake, which lead back into the forest.


	11. Chapter 11

Castiel continued on with renewed determination, stopping only to rest or hunt for food, and never for any more time than he absolutely needed. When he did sleep, he did so with the silver dagger clutched in his fist; he did not plan on making the same mistake twice.

Three days after the lake, the amulet became almost uncomfortably warm, and by the next morning it was so hot that Castiel wore it outside his clothes. Irritating as it was, it was hard not to be excited at the prospect of being close to Dean’s shrine. The trees began to thin as night fell, and on the fifth morning Castiel was finally rewarded for his efforts.

A single flower, amethyst in the middle and tipped with gold from the sunlight, hung from a nearby vine at eye level. Even as his spirits rose, Castiel was worried it didn’t mean what he thought it meant; perhaps the florist from the Celebration of Words had been mistaken about this bloom’s particular association. 

But there was another one just ahead, growing out of the ground next to a bush. And another, and then a whole cluster of them growing along the trunk of a tree. They grew in number as Castiel continued on, and he was so fascinated by the beautiful plants waving their gold-tipped petals at him that he barely noticed his feet carrying him forwards.

With this new development came a feeling of relief, though he knew his quest was far from over. Still, yesterday the forest had looked just as infinite as it always did, and Dean’s shrine had been little more than an infinitely far away concept, but the appearance of the vivid flora soothed Castiel’s doubts that this was somehow all a big hoax considerably.

He followed their golden glow this way and that, over hills and through small streams, and as the sun was beginning to set he found himself at the foot of a short set of stone steps, overgrown with moss and weeds and worn down or cracked in places that had sustained too many watery caresses. Beyond the top step, Castiel saw nothing but a flat expanse of stone in much the same state as the steps, disturbed only by the few crumbling remains of statues and pillars. 

Perhaps the flowers happened to lead through some kind of ritual site? He started up. Unless…was it possible that Dean’s shrine had been demolished? It wasn’t a possibility he had previously considered, but if something was strong enough to capture Dean, it was probably strong enough to level Dean’s home too. And even if it wasn’t, Dean must have put up a fight when he was taken, and a powerful Oracle thrashing about was certainly likely to cause some amount of destruction.

At almost three quarters of the way, Castiel was distracted by a light shining somewhere below him, causing him to squint. Around his neck, the pendant glowed hot against his armor; he’d forgotten that he had set it outside his clothing, but was now glad he had done so; it would have burned straight through his skin if it was as hot as it looked.

He tried to ignore it—he was not going to risk injuring himself by covering it with his hand—but the higher he climbed, the brighter it became, until he was stumbling clumsily up the remaining few stairs, his vision clouded by white light. He pressed up over the last step there was a final burst of light that forced him to close his eyes entirely accompanied by a rush of cool air, until at last it faded away.

Castiel blinked rapidly, rubbing the heels of his palms against his eyes to try and alleviate the dark spots dancing behind his lids. When his vision finally cleared he froze, his mouth agape, feeling even more disoriented than he had been after the lake. He was standing in a room that had definitely not existed before he had started up the stairs. Even when he had been squinting through the light he was positive this room had not been here. The moss-covered cracking slabs of gray rock were gone, replaced by a smooth sandstone floor and walls. Sunlight streamed in through curved windows, casting the place in a warm orange glow.

Castiel turned back around the way he’d come, and was surprised to see the stairs right in front of him, and beyond that the forest and the beautiful flowers, all existing peacefully as if he hadn’t just been transported to a room that didn’t exist. He turned back into the room and started forwards, hesitantly.

This could be Dean’s shrine, but it could also be another shifter trick, like Hannah had been. How was he to know? Castiel had never heard of monsters that crafted entire buildings as part of their hunt, not even in bedtime stories, but he drew the Angel Blade all the same.

He leaned against the far wall, directly next to the archway. He could hear torches crackling merrily, but there were no signs of life; no breathing aside from his own, no footfalls—in fact, Castiel had left a solitary set of bootprints in the thin layer of dust, and no others were present, which meant it was likely that no one had been here in quite some time. Still, he peeked cautiously through the archway, surveying the inner chamber, before his eyes came to the center and his amazement overtook all of his stealth training in an instant.

The chamber was spacious, with a ceiling much higher than the entrance room’s had been; regal pillars lined the walls, sprawling skywards and creating geometric breaks in the interspersed torchlight. Towards the far end of the chamber, what appeared to be a throne sat on top of a small platform, sheltered on either side by decorated stone bowls filled with dying embers. The seat itself was rather simple, but the back of the throne exploded outward in a graceful halo made up of precious earth-colored stones that twinkled and glinted as the torchlight danced across it. 

No one occupied the throne, of course, but Castiel wondered what Dean would look like sitting there, the bowls of embers lit and casting an even more dramatic fiery glow over Dean and the precious stones behind him. Before he realized it, he was stepping up onto the platform, and this close he could better see the gold, citrine, garnet, amber, and even the occasional flecks of peridot that made up the beautiful halo.  

This was Dean’s home, his true home. All at once he felt humbled to have this experience, despite the circumstances. Dean had always been a story, a comforting unseen character in his life, but  _ this, _ this was proof of him. Dean was as real as Castiel. He reached out past the seat to trace along the edge of the enormous halo.

“What are you doing here?”

Castiel startled, and turned to face the newcomer.


	12. Chapter 12

“I—” Words failed him, and all he could do was stare.

The man stood in the archway, shoulders pulled back and hands held loosely behind him, regarding Castiel. Castiel, for his part, had never seen a man—or any human, for that matter—who looked like this. A silver circlet sat atop long chestnut hair pulled loosely back from a perfectly symmetrical face, and kind, almond-shaped hazel eyes peered back at him curiously. A finely woven, moss green tunic studded with silver embroidery stretched over the broad torso, cinched at the waist by a wide belt off of which hung a sheathed dagger. More silver jewelry wound itself around his ankles and calves, pressing over lightweight pants.

HIs whole person seemed to glow softly, and the way his clothes and hair shifted minutely even when he was standing still made it seem as if a gentle breeze followed him everywhere. Castiel could not help but think that this man—if that was indeed what he was—was quite beautiful, and he tugged self-consciously at his own rather dirty tunic, apologetic for his unkempt and plain state of being in the face of such a lovely person.

The man did not look hostile, or really at all troubled to find Castiel there; he simply waited patiently for Castile to find his voice.

“My apologies, I…my name is Castiel, and I’m a warrior from the land Dean cares for. The prophets were informed that he was in danger, and I…I was chosen to find him.”

The man smiled softly, though his expression was suddenly weary. Castiel watched, still in a daze, as he crossed the chamber and came to stand in front of him on the platform, in front of Dean’s throne. Castiel was not a small person, but the man still stood several inches taller than him.

“In that case, welcome,” the man said, holding out a large hand which Castiel grasped in a firm shake. “You must be a skilled warrior to have made it here alive. My name is Sam; I am the Oracle of the land neighboring yours. Dean is my brother, and he is indeed in trouble. Oh,” Sam’s gaze fell to Castiel’s chest, where the amulet sat against his armor. Sam tapped a finger against it. “This belongs to Dean. I imagine it helped you find your way to this place.”

An Oracle. No wonder he was so magnificent looking.

Castiel nodded. “Yes, it led me here.” He wanted to ask for information, or guidance on where to start looking next. The amulet wouldn’t help him find Dean if it was attached to the shrine; where to start looking? Dean could be anywhere. But the words caught in his throat. There were very few stories of humans interacting with their Oracles, so there had never been any teachings on how to conduct oneself around them. Should he wait to speak until Sam addressed him? Would it be rude to ask a grieving brother about the disappearance of another Oracle? Should he have bowed, or kissed Sam’s hand, or somehow shown his admiration?

Sam chuckled softly, drawing Castiel out of his thoughts. 

“No need to bow or kiss my hand or anything else.” Castiel hadn’t known that Oracles could read minds. He flushed as Sam continued, “Truthfully I’m glad to see you; A few days ago I learned where Dean is being kept hostage but the place is warded against me, and there is very little I can do from the outside, save for wait here for Dean’s chosen prince-charming.” Sam looked him over, and he was reminded again of his ragged appearance. “You’ve traveled a long way. Let’s get you cleaned up, and I’ll tell you what I know over supper.”

Castiel’s stomach growled his appreciation, and he nodded gratefully.

Sam led him to the left side of the chamber, where he beckoned for Castiel to follow him between two pillars and down a hallway that opened to a bathroom. With a wave of his hand, Sam filled the wooden tub with steaming water, and left Castiel, saying over his shoulder as he went, “When you’ve finished, meet me back in the throne room.”

After thoroughly washing himself, Castiel scrubbed his clothes and rinsed his armor, before drying them quickly with a heating spell. Refreshed and warm, he returned to the main chamber to see that Sam had conjured a table strewn with delicious looking things: fresh bread, an assortment of jams, roasted meats and fish, fresh fruits, and a steaming cauldron of what must have been stew. Castiel felt his mouth water as the smells reached him, and he sat gingerly across from Sam.

Sam only smiled kindly at his hesitation. “Please, eat. Take as much as you want, I’m sure you’re hungry.”

“Thank you,” Castiel replied, and as quickly as he could without appearing crazed, he loaded his plate with meat and bread and stew and began to eat.

Oh, how he’d missed good food. The forest bore plenty of berries, water, and edible plants, and Castiel had hunted small animals a few times, but he had only stopped to eat enough to keep himself alive. He hadn’t realized how badly his jaw ached for more substantial things to chew on until he pulled a buttered piece of warm bread between his teeth. He ate in silence for a few moments before looking up to find Sam watching him, an almost fond expression on his face. Sam hadn’t taken any food.

“Are you going to eat too?”

Sam waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about me, I’m not hungry.”

Castiel stopped with another piece of bread halfway to his open mouth. Dread seeped into the corners of his mind, as he remembered his encounter with the Hannah imposter. Giving him shelter and a bath was going quite a bit farther than she had done, but even so…

The shifter hadn’t eaten anything either. 

He lowered the bread and clenched his jaw, his right hand sneaking down to clasp at the hilt of the Angel Blade at his hip.

“There’s no need for that; I’m not a shifter.”

“What shifter would say otherwise?”

Sam grinned at him. “Fair point. Leave your sword sheathed; hand me the silver knife at your thigh.”

Castiel did so slowly. He knew it was bad form to pass a weapon to someone blade-first, but he wanted to keep his grip on the hilt in case he needed to use it. Sam’s face was only understanding as he took the dagger carefully. He shook the left sleeve of his tunic out of the way, and made a thin slice on the inside of his forearm. A drop of red blood fell, but the wound did not burn or glow as it had with the shifter. Castiel relaxed in his seat, and accepted his dagger back. He looked at his plate, ashamed.

“Forgive me, Sam. I did not mean to dismiss your hospitality.”

Sam shook his head. “Not at all, it was smart of you to check. Shifters are crafty and dangerous creatures, but I’m sure you knew that already. I’m sorry that one impersonated your friend.” He sat back comfortably in his chair, picking up a pear and tossing it casually into the air before catching it again. “Now, why don’t we talk about Dean.”


	13. Chapter 13

“Though it frustrates me to admit it, I’ll start by saying that I truly have no clear idea  _ why _ someone went to the trouble to take my brother,” Sam began. “Oracles are powerful in their own right, more powerful than humans certainly, but we aren’t Gods. We cannot command the sea or sky or Earth, nor are we immortal. Most of our real power comes from our tokens.” Sam indicated the amulet still around Castiel’s neck. 

Castiel raised an amused eyebrow. “Would mind-reading not be considered highly useful magic for someone wishing to cause trouble?”

Sam laughed aloud at that. “Luckily, there is nothing on this Earth that could force an Oracle to reveal any thoughts that they’ve read from someone else. Besides, it’s considered impolite to invade a person’s privacy in such a way if there is no real need to do so.”

“I see. Truthfully, I find that comforting.” Sam chuckled. “You’ve suggested that every Oracle has a…token. Where is yours? How did Dean’s amulet come to be in the possession of my land?”

“We willingly separate ourselves from them. Mine is safe in the land I watch over.”

“Why?”

“Two reasons, mostly. The first one you know: tokens act as a means of direct communication between an Oracle and especially skilled prophets in their land. Second, the gift of a token is seen as a symbol of mutual trust; we trust the people to keep our token safe and secure, and the people trust their Oracle not to use their true power to bring harm to the land.”

“But the prophet Anna was badly burned when she touched the amulet. If it’s supposed to be used for communicating, why was she injured? Why was I sent to find Dean even though I’m not a prophet at all, never mind an especially skilled one?”

Sam shook his head, furrowing his brow in confusion. “I’m afraid I don’t know. Those are questions for Dean, once you reach him.”

Castiel was silent for a moment. “How should I go about reaching him?”

“Around one hundred miles or so north of here is a cave which leads down to an underground prison. The people in the nearby land are skilled miners, and they built the prison for use during a war several centuries ago. As you can imagine, for the average person it is rather a dangerous place to be; after the war children would play down there and get lost in the maze. It’s especially easy to get turned around without the sunlight to guide you.” Sam paused to take a bite out of the pear he was still holding. “But other than that, it’s been abandoned, which unfortunately makes it a perfect place to hold someone hostage.” Sam’s brow creased in frustration and he glowered down at the table as though it were at fault. “I hate to think of Dean alone down in that dark, cold place. What they must be doing to him, for him to be unable to escape…” he trailed off.

“How can you be sure Dean is there?” Castiel asked quietly, and Sam’s face smoothed over, distracted from his unpleasant thoughts.

“As I mentioned earlier, it is warded against other Oracles by powerful magic, magic that I am rather unfamiliar with. I am limited at how close I can get to the entrance, but I’ve watched beings leave and return. Normally, I would have a telepathic connection to Dean as well, but I am unable to reach him, which I can only guess is a result of the magical barriers. But you’re right, Dean could be elsewhere,” he paused, rummaging in his pants pocket and pulling something out, before continuing, “except that I found this, a short distance from the cave.”

He held out his palm to Castiel. A single flower, or the pitiful remains of one, sat in his hand, the petals squashed and torn in places and dulled with dirt, as though it had been stepped on repeatedly. Tips that had once shined a sparkling silver were now a sickly gray, stripped of life.

“No reason for this to be so far from Dean’s shrine, unless Dean had brought it with him to leave as evidence of his presence.” Sam’s voice was grim, resigned to the fact that Dean was in fact inside the unpleasant prison.

Castiel made to stand up, his energy restored and his determination showing in the hard set of his jaw.

“I’ll leave at once. Please, can you point me in the right direction?”

Sam rose too, pushing his chair in and moving about the room. “I’ll do you one better. I can bring you as close to the cave as the warding will allow me, so that you may be spared the extra few weeks of travel.” The table and food disappeared in the blink of an eye, and Sam came to stand in front of Castiel.

“This may feel….uncomfortable,” Sam said apologetically, before pressing two fingers to Castiel’s forehead.

There was a blinding flash of light and for the briefest of seconds Castiel felt like his entire body was being compressed on all sides, and Castiel had never wished for anything to end harder than in that moment. He felt his feet thump softly against the ground, blinking his eyes open dizzily and looking around at the dark forest. It was the middle of the night, and he stood beside Sam in a completely unfamiliar part of the forest, the shrine nowhere in sight. 

Sam waited patiently for him to regain his ground before gesturing through the trees towards the cave entrance.

It was huge and intimidatingly dark. No lights shone from inside, and the trees and plants in the immediate vicinity stood eerily still, as though afraid to so much as twitch. There were no guards visibly present, though that did little to ease the tension in the air.

“Look, up there,” Sam whispered, pointing up and to the right, where a tree trunk was emblazoned with a strange, complicated symbol that Castiel did not recognize. “Ancient warding,” Sam explained in the same hushed whisper, pointing to various spots beyond that bore similar depictions. “When I try to get closer, it’s like trying to walk through a wall.”

“Is there any way to get rid of them?”

“I don’t know for sure. I can’t get near enough to try.” Sam turned to him. “I recommend you make your way in before sunrise. It won’t matter much once you’re underground, but the darkness will give you some cover while you reach the entrance.”

Castiel nodded, already mentally mapping his route. Sam clapped a hand against his shoulder.

“I will stay here until you come out with Dean, in case either of you needs assistance. I hope luck is with you tonight.”

“As do I,” Castiel replied, grimacing at the cave.

“And Castiel? Thank you. I trust that Dean will be in capable hands, once you find him.”

Castiel gave Sam a reassuring look before heading off, darting between the trees towards the gaping mouth of the cave.


	14. Chapter 14

In retrospect, he really should have predicted this outcome. 

His shoulders ached from the strain of his arms being stretched too far in opposite directions, and the back of his head throbbed angrily where he had been struck. At some point during his unconsciousness his armor and weapons had been removed, and his tunic was slowly being torn to pieces by his own precious Angel Blade. He grit his teeth as his cackling captor drew a thin cut with the tip of the blade from his collarbone to his left breast. The only light in the area came from the white light that trailed behind the blade as it cut into Castiel’s skin.

The forest between Sam and the cave opening had been entirely devoid of life, and Castiel had forgone using any sort of artificial light to see into the cave. What was the point, if he was going to be shrouded in darkness anyway? His eyes would need to adjust. 

Even standing directly in the opening, and even with the moon high and full in the sky, he could not see more than a few feet in front of himself. He slid along the cave wall, feeling in front of himself with his hands and placing his feet carefully, until he reached the back wall of the cave. He continued feeling along the wall, searching blindly for some indication of a downward slope, when he lost his footing and stumbled down the first few steps of a narrow staircase, slick with moisture like the rest of the cave. He caught himself before he could well and truly fall, and he turned to face forward, keeping his left hand along the wall just in case the steps took an unexpected direction.

By the time he had descended the first ten steps, the opening of the cave had slid out of his line of of vision entirely, taking the rest of the outside world with it. At least his eyes were finally starting to adjust, not that it particularly mattered; the staircase was long and winding, and continued well past his field of vision. He had drawn the Angel Blade into his right hand, though his hope was that he wouldn’t have to use it; the stairs, besides being slippery and uneven, were too narrow for any sort of sneak attack to work properly.

At last he reached the bottom of the staircase, where he slid his foot outwards to be sure that it was indeed the bottom, and not an abnormally wide step. From what he could see, he was standing in a long corridor with doors interspersed on either side. Where to start looking for Dean? 

He took a few hesitant steps forward, his sight not quite well adjusted enough to see the additional corridor directly to his left. He’d made it to the first door before a blunt object struck the back of his head hard, and he blacked out.

And now he was tied up, weaponless, still unaware of Dean’s location, and being sliced and diced by an unknown assailant. Some master strategist he was.

“Castiel…I have to say, I’m disappointed.” The last word was drawn out into a singsong. The speaker had an odd kind of nasally drawl, as though he were purposely keeping his words in his mouth as long as he was able. 

“Where’s Dean?”

“Oh no no no, don’t worry about him, he’s locked up nice and tight.” The final letter was especially enunciated. “No, I want to talk about  _ you _ .”

The Angel Blade dragged threateningly against his ribs but did not break the skin.

“You figured out how to get all the way here, you even bested my shifter, and then…you get caught skulking around my prison. Sloppy, sloppy work.”

The blade cut into Castiel’s skin this time, trailing white and cutting through his tunic as if it weren’t there. Castiel let out a grunt, but bit his lip to stop any other sounds escaping. He would not give this person the satisfaction.

“I mean,” the voice continued, moving about about the space, “That was clever, using a silver blade. She nearly fooled you though, didn’t she? She could have walked you here if she’d had a mind to, it took you an awfully long time to figure out that it wasn’t…what was her name? Shannah, Mannah, Banana, something like that?”

“Hannah!” Castiel spat out.

“Ah yes of course my mistake.” The voice was dismissive and unapologetic. “I only sent her to retrieve Dean’s token, you see. Oracles are far more powerful when they have their little trinket with them, creates so much extra work for me. Killing you then and there was her idea though, so you know. Nothing personal.” The last two words were drawn out and punctuated by sharp jabs of the Angel Blade into his stomach. “You might wish you hadn’t won that fight, though. Now I get to kill you the way I want to: slowly. Painfully. It’s more entertaining for me that way, and it means that I’ll get to pry Dean’s token from your cold, lifeless body.”

“Where is Dean?”

This time the blade sank unforgivingly into his right shoulder, and Castiel couldn’t help the cry that left him.

“ _ Enough _ of that now!” the voice roared, before dulling to it’s previous conversational tone. “You’ll join him soon enough, I promise. I take my promises very seriously Castiel, and I promise that you will be one of many to suffer at my hands.”

A hand gripped his hair in a merciless grip, and the light emitted from the Angel Blade as it was drawn out of his shoulder illuminated the face of his captor. The man’s face was long, his eyes malicious, and his smile depraved, and then the light faded and Castiel felt the cold tip of the blade pressed against the hollow of his throat.

“It gets rather boring down here in the dark,” the voice said cheerfully, “How will we pass the time?”

Castiel lost consciousness after the first hour, and when he came to he was sore and stinging with one eye swollen shut, and being half dragged to the end of a corridor. He heard a lock click and a heavy door whined and creaked its way to open, and he was thrown unceremoniously onto the cold stone floor.

The door slammed shut behind him, and he struggled to make sense of his surroundings with only one good eye. As he was feeling along the floor, his hand made contact with something that was not cold wet stone, but warm, solid flesh.

Castiel looked up to see what—or who—he had run into.

“Castiel…I wondered when I would finally meet you.”


	15. Chapter 15

“Of course, I wish we were meeting under different circumstances.”

He could barely see, but his eyes trailed slowly upwards from his own hand, which appeared to be clasped around an ankle, over the faint outline of a leg, over a torso, and finally to a face, though no features were clearly discernible.

Castiel’s mouth fell open. Meeting Sam had been one thing, but this was not just any Oracle, this was  _ his _ Oracle, sitting in the flesh in front of him, speaking to him as casually as he might talk to a friend during a walk through the woods. 

“ _ Dean, _ ” he breathed, finally.

He suddenly felt like the smallest person in the world. What had he done in his life to earn the privilege of sitting in front of his own Oracle? How could the being sitting in front of him possibly value his company, even in the confinements of a cold jail cell?

“You’ll have to excuse my appearance. Being imprisoned has rather dulled my shine.” Dean’s voice was rough and deep, and surprisingly cheeky, given the circumstances. 

“I-it doesn’t matter,” Castiel assured him hurriedly, his voice shaky. “I can’t see much of anything anyway.”

“Fair enough.”

There was silence, and Castiel belatedly realized he hadn’t removed his hand from Dean’s ankle. He muttered an apology and hastily removed his hand, sitting back on his heels and summoning a small amount of magic to his fingertips. He swept two fingers underneath his swollen eye, wincing when he found it to be more tender than he’d expected. A dull ache remained when he was done—he only knew enough healing magic to clear up minor amounts of damage—but the swelling had gone down enough for his eye to be useable. 

His shoulder would be far more work; the wound was fairly deep and singed around the edges. He pressed his entire palm to it, hissing quietly when it smarted and throbbed as the skin knit itself back together. It would need much more time to heal properly, but at least he wasn’t bleeding anymore.

“How bad did he rough you up?” Dean asked, hearing Castiel’s discomfort. It was amazing how much sharper his other senses were, now that he’d been mostly robbed of sight. He could discern notes of worry in the offhand question.

“I’m fine,” he replied dismissively. Then, “What about you, did he—are you hurt? My healing skills aren’t perfect, but I can alleviate some of the smaller injuries, if you have any...” His voice trailed off.

There was a rustle as Dean shifted about across from him. “I’ll live. Don’t waste your magic on me.” His voice was quieter and dismissive.

“Dean…” Castiel felt around on the floor for something metallic, but found nothing but wet stone. “Is there any metal in here? Even a small piece would do.”

“I’m…chained to the wall, but there’s nothing loose. What do you need it for?”

Castiel ignored the question, moving around Dean’s leg—apologizing hastily again when he knocked against him—and feeling along the wall instead until his hands found a metal ring jutting out of the stone. His hands followed the chains that were attached to it a short way down. His shaking hands did not make contact with any part of Dean, so there was no danger of burning him if he tried to heat the metal. He did so, heating it enough that it glowed dully. Dying embers provided more light than this, but in such a dark place even the small amount of orange light coming off of the heated hook was a significant improvement.

Castiel surveyed the room. Behind him was a heavy iron door, resolutely blocking their only exit. Near the top of the door was a small grate, but there was nothing but more stone to see beyond it. Their prison cell was not large; if he sat against one wall and stretched his legs out, he would nearly be touching the other side. There was a wet, sad excuse for a blanket in the far corner, and nothing else in the space.

Finally his eyes landed on Dean, and he couldn’t stop a gasp escaping him.

If his face was perfectly symmetrical the way Sam’s had been, it was nearly impossible to tell. The left side of his jaw was littered with yellows, browns, and purples, and the space just above his right cheekbone was badly swollen. His lower lip was split open and bloody, rubbed raw from where he’d clearly been lapping at it with his tongue. A long—but thankfully not deep—cut ran from the edge of his right eyebrow down across his nose and ended on his left cheek. His left eyebrow was caked with blood spilled from a deep gash across his forehead, and there was more discoloration that disappeared into his hairline. Dark, puffy circles settled under his eyes, and his eyes—

His obvious weariness did nothing to diminish the vivid, forest green of his eyes.

Dean shrugged ruefully, clearly uncomfortable being seen in so vulnerable a state.

“As I said, I usually look more impressive than this.” He laughed softly, a nervous sound, and the cut on his lip stretched with his smile.

Castiel swallowed. His voice felt stuck. “Can you…can you not heal yourself?”

There was a clinking sound as Dean brought his hands up to eye level. Around his wrists were handcuffs engraved with the same complicated sigils Sam had pointed out earlier.

“Warded restraints,” Dean said, rolling his eyes and sounding quite irritated. “I can’t use any magic here.”

Castiel gnawed on his bottom lip.

“So. Did he tell you anything about why you’re here?”

“I’m here to rescue you,” Castiel stated plainly.

Dean quirked an amused eyebrow. “I see, and how is that coming along?” Dean’s tone was teasing, and Castiel flushed.

“Who is he? What does he want?”

Dean sighed, readjusting himself against the back wall. Castiel moved into a more comfortable position on the opposite side of their light source.

“His name is Alistair,” Dean said, his eyes closed and head tilted back against the wall. He swallowed thickly, looking pained, before continuing, “He was an Oracle once. He wants that pendant around your neck.” He gestured to Castiel’s chest.

“Your token,” Castiel said absently, and Dean nodded. It was still tucked safely inside his tunic, warm against his skin. “What for? Why didn’t he just take it from me?” 

“He isn’t able to.” Dean sounded quite pleased by this. “You do not burn, but others who try to touch it sustain injury. Alistair is just as human as you are, though far less worthy of possessing my amulet.”

“Should I…return it to you?” Castiel asked, pulling the pendant out of his clothes and making to remove it from around his neck, but Dean wave him away.

“It does me no good, while I’m still locked up in these.” He shook the chains.

Questions raced around his head, fighting for top priority. Who was Alistair? Why did he want Dean’s token? For that matter, why did Castiel seem to be the only one who could touch it without harm? If Alistair needed the amulet, why was he torturing Dean?

“You said Alistair was once an Oracle?” Dean nodded. “What happened?”

Dean smiled at him. “It’s a rather long story.”

“We have time,” Castiel countered, leaning back against the wall.


	16. Chapter 16

The land Castiel called home had not always been so big.

Long ago—thousands of years before Castiel’s existence—the land existed as two separate regions, each with its own Oracle.

The Eastern region, which Castiel would one day call home, was cared for by the Oracle John. Cheerful, kind, and occasionally mischievous, John visited his land often to play with the children, celebrate during festivals, and converse with the prophets. Though he wore many variations of his human form, he was always instantly identifiable by his token, a metal pendant with horns and a strange little face. 

John readily used his magic to aid the people in times of strife. He healed the Earth and conjured clouds for rain when the crops grew poorly. When illness spread, John stayed with the people for days at a time, healing the sick as they appeared. The land was prosperous and healthy, and people wanted for very little.

The Western region was guarded by an Oracle called Alistair. Proud and practical, Alistair valued success and skill in whatever trade a person pursued, and showed his affection by praising those who worked hard and aimed high. He visited the school regularly, sometimes just to observe and other times to teach a class himself. The people considered it a great honor to be taught directly by an Oracle. 

Like Dean, Alistair’s physical appearance varied, but he too was identifiable by his token, a short knife with a wooden hilt and sigils engraved into the jagged blade. He often used it when teaching battle tactics or interrogation techniques, showing students how to use a small weapon against larger blades, or teaching them how to best use pain to interrogate a prisoner without doing lasting damage. With his help, the land built a fearsome army, and the people were additionally renowned for their high intelligence.

For a while, there was peace. Each land prospered in its own way, and each Oracle kept to their own territory, save for friendly visits from time to time.

As the years passed, Alistair developed a particular interest in developing war weaponry and interrogation practices. He began to disregard success in fields such as baking, art, literature, skills that he felt were not useful in battle. The people began shifting their focus to excelling in such trades as blacksmiths, warriors, and strategists, trying to gain Alistair’s praise and favor.

Eventually, the heavy focus on war took its toll on the land. People became more and more cruel, unforgivingly sentencing even the most minor offense with harsh punishments. They turned on each other, accusing one another of sabotage while attempting to cut one another down so that Alistair would value them highest over all the others.

Alistair did nothing to stop this. He had been prideful to begin with but the strong army he had built made him greedy. His people had the means and skills to take over neighboring lands, so why shouldn’t they? Everyone in the world should strive to be as cunning, as strong, as demanding as his people were. 

It was unheard of for an Oracle to wage war against a neighbor’s land. When John heard the cries of his people, he rushed to them only to find the western border, closest to Alistair’s land, had been burned to the ground, and strewn amongst the wreckage lay men, women, children, all brutally slain for no purpose. He was livid even as he set about comforting his people and healing those who had escaped. He would have a talk with Alistair about his land’s blatant attack; and Oracle should expect better from his land. When the western armies came again, John was waiting and ready to defend his land, and turn the armies back towards their homes.

The betrayal he felt when he saw Alistair, dagger raised high and sigils glowing with power, leading his armies to cause death and destruction with nothing but malice in his eyes, was unimaginable. 

The ensuing battle was catastrophic. John ordered his people away, told them to find shelter far away from this place, and stood to face Alistair’s people alone. With his amulet glowing hot around his neck, he fought valiantly against hundreds of men and women, refusing to kill a single one as he cleared a path to Alistair. When the two collided, there was a burst of energy that crashed in waves over the surrounding area. It caused such a ruckus that the Gods hurried down to see what was happening. 

They arrived just in time to see Alistair plunge his glowing dagger through John’s heart. John’s eyes shone bright to match his amulet as the life rushed out of him, and then he lay still, the pendant cold and blank against him.

The Gods roared their anger, seizing Alistair and dragging him back to their home. They took his dagger and melted it down into nothing as Alistair screamed and screamed, feeling his power leaving him. Not known for their forgiveness, the Gods punished Alistair further by sentencing him to walk the Earth as a man, incapable of dying of old age, so that he would be reminded for all of eternity the power that had been stripped from him. They hurled Alistair back to Earth, where he slunk away and was lost for centuries.

There was much debate about the best way to prevent another such outburst. After several years it was decreed that Oracles would entrust their tokens, the source of most of their power, to the people. This act was honored as a sacred contract, promising that an Oracle would never use their powers to bring harm to the land so long as their people kept the token safe. Furthermore, it ensured that no one Oracle would have enough power to corrupt their people into becoming hostile and dangerous and lead them into war, as Alistair had done. Oracles would now watch their land grow from afar, and aid them only when it was critically necessary.

This decision was met without argument by the Oracles. All were shocked at Alistair’s descent into anger and greed, and all mourned the the death of John. As a tribute to their murdered brother, they entrusted his token to his eldest son Dean. Young though he was, Dean accepted his father’s token dutifully, and was assigned to look after both the Eastern and Western regions of land that were now both without Oracles. 

Over the years, Dean worked tirelessly to unite the two lands, coaxing those who had fallen into hatred and greed back into a world of love and generosity, all while keeping his distance. Eventually, peace returned, and the people forgot about Alistair and John, and about the war that had nearly ruined them all.

But Alistair did not forget. In the recesses of the forest he held onto his hatred, obsessed with finding a way to have his power back. He had killed John, but it was Alistair who suffered now, and John could no longer be made to atone for Alistair’s situation.

So Alistair directed his rage to John’s son, and swore to himself that the one day he would make the young Oracle pay for his father’s sins.


	17. Chapter 17

“So…all that Alistair is doing is for the sake of… _ revenge _ ?” 

Dean nodded. He now sat cross-legged, staring grouchily at the ground. His hands, which had previously been aiding his story with motions and gestures—insofar as he was able anyway, with his restraints—now folded and unfolded in his lap, and every now and again he picked at his cuticles. Expelling excess angry energy, Castiel supposed. 

“The son of a bitch killed my father, and still believes he deserves the world.” His biting growl seemed to rattle against the stone walls.

Castiel had never been very good at comforting anyone, least of all an Oracle. He cleared his throat nervously, casting about for something to say.

“I’m…sorry about your father. No child should be subjected to that sort of tragedy.”

Dean didn’t meet his eyes. “It was a long time ago,” he said, and though the vicious tone had dulled, Castiel could hear the unspoken request to drop the subject. For a while they sat in silence, Dean seemingly lost in his own thoughts and still fidgeting irritably, and Castiel watching Dean as covertly as he could manage.

It had been several hours since he’d been in here with Dean, and the surreality had not faded in the slightest.

Perhaps, Castiel thought, the reason he couldn’t believe he was sitting in front of his Oracle had to do with the fact that Dean acted so  _ human _ . Sam had been kind, and quite helpful, but he had spoken and acted with an air of professionalism, even a vague regality. Dean spoke to him as though they were old friends, made facial expressions that Castiel was certain Dean didn’t realize he was making, made animated gestures to exaggerate his stories. He was a person as much as he was an Oracle. Castiel imagined they would have been great friends, somewhere in another life where Dean was human.

He could only hope to ever see Dean at his full capacity, dressed in the same fine clothes and jewels Sam had worn, his laugh loud and cheerful and his face warmed by the sun, unmarred by the injuries that he currently bore. Even so, he found that he rather liked the Dean sitting across from him, even if the circumstances were far, far less than ideal. 

Though  admittedly, he did wish Dean would let Castiel heal him, at least a little.

“I can hear you thinking.”

Dean’s voice shook him out of his thoughts, and he realized with a rush of embarrassment that Dean had caught him staring, and was staring right back at him with a sly glint in his eyes. Castiel settled back once he understood that Dean was teasing him again, but sat straight immediately a moment later when Dean’s words reached him.  _ Oracles could read minds. _

His horror must have shown on his face, because Dean laughed loud and full, his eyes closed and head thrown back.

“Relax,” he chuckled finally, “warding, remember?” He shook his chains for emphasis. “I’m unable to actually read your mind right now.” He laughed softly once more before continuing, “I only meant that you seemed deep in thought. What were you thinking about?”

“I…truthfully, I was wishing you would allow me to heal some of your injuries.”

Dean rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, looking like he was going to deny needing aid again.

“Please, Dean, let me help you. I can at least reduce the swelling and some of the aches and you’ll feel much better.”

Dean looked at him hesitantly for a moment, before sighing and rolling his eyes. “Fine, if it’ll make you stop worrying.” He scooted along the floor until he was sitting in front of Castiel. 

“Well,” he said, shrugging, “Work your magic.”

Castiel cleared his throat and rose to sit on his heels, so that Dean’s face was tilted up towards him; this way, their tiny light source would be most effective. He drew magic into his fingertips as he had done for himself, and, not trusting himself to refrain from staring, rigorously avoided meeting Dean’s eyes directly. Instead, he followed his fingers as he targeted the worst injuries on Dean’s face. 

He brushed his pointer and middle fingers gingerly over the large swell above Dean’s cheekbone, sweeping his fingers back and forth as the swelling began to fade. Dean grimaced at the sensation, scrunching the right half of his face.

“Sorry,” Castiel muttered, as the swelling faded entirely. Next he moved to the gash on Dean’s forehead; the wound was stubborn and took an extra push of Castiel’s magic to get the skin healing sufficiently, which earned him another expression of discomfort from his patient. When he was done, only a shallow, scabbed-over cut remained, though there was little he could do about the blood and grime Dean already wore. 

For a fleeting moment, Castiel was glad for the lack of proper lighting. Something about what he was doing felt embarrassingly intimate, though intimacy had not been Castiel’s goal when he offered to heal Dean. It was a rather foreign feeling to him. This was exactly how he would heal anyone else—Hannah, Samandriel, Hester, his mother—if they needed it. The act itself didn’t mean anything. 

But then, everything with Dean still felt weird and unreal, so why should this be different?

Dean watched him intently as his fingers smoothed downwards to his jaw, and Castiel redoubled his efforts to look nowhere but at his work. From the rainbow of bruises collected in this area, it looked like Alistair had a preferred side when he was striking Dean. The bruises cleared up without much of a fuss. 

Last was Dean’s split lip. Castiel hesitated here; this truly  _ did _ feel like too invasive a gesture. Surely Dean wouldn’t want him to touch his mouth.

“Dean, I—“ he paused to clear his throat, “I’m not sure if you want me to—I could heal your mouth but it…I do not wish to invade your personal space.”

Dean’s mouth twitched minutely. “You can continue; I don’t mind.”

Still hesitant, expecting Dean to draw back, Castiel’s fingers hovered over Dean’s closed mouth.

“Extend your bottom lip, so I can reach the cut properly,” he instructed, and Dean’s mouth parted slightly. His fingers pressed against the rough split and he kept them there until the skin turned smooth and soft again. 

Castiel retracted his hand and was finally able to properly look at Dean’s face. Without the harsher wounds, it was painfully clear that Dean had the same symmetrical, borderline ethereal qualities that Sam had, despite the layer of dried blood and other dirt still smeared about his face. Sam’s eyes didn’t have quite the same piercing quality though. Castiel swallowed.

“Do you feel better now that I’m healed,  _ mother _ ?” Dean teased, breaking the strange silence that had fallen between them. Castiel rolled his eyes and shoved lightly at Dean’s shoulder. Dean laughed and caught Castiel’s arm to stop himself falling backwards.

“Really, Cas,” he said, keeping his light grip on Castiel’s arm and smiling at him sincerely, “Thank you.”

Castiel returned his smile. “You’re welcome, Dean.”

The new nickname went undiscussed.


	18. Chapter 18

“You never told me what Alistair plans to do with your token,” Castiel said, tracing his fingers over the amulet while Dean stretched and groaned, a few joints popping loudly in protest at sleeping on a cold stone floor.

One of the most disorienting things about being in almost total darkness for such a long time was that there was no way to properly measure the passage of time. Castiel could not tell whether it had been a day and a half or only a few hours since he’d arrived, and it made him restless. Dean had dozed off shortly after he was healed up a bit, likely far more relieved than he was letting on and exhausted from suffering through so much pain. Castiel tried to sleep, for who knew when the chance would come again, but all he could manage was a jerky, half-conscious state. It was impossible to be comfortable on the cold stone; he felt simultaneously too cramped and as though he couldn’t curl into himself far enough. He suspected Dean fell asleep so easily because he had been here for far longer, and was more or less resigned to the conditions of the place. 

After a few hours of attempting—he supposed it had been a few hours, who could say for sure—he had given up and sat against the wall, twirling Dean’s pendant through his fingers. He waited patiently for an answer while Dean rubbed at his eyes.

“No I…” Dean trailed off as a yawn started, stretching his mouth wide enough that his jaw cracked. “I suppose I didn’t. He wants to become and Oracle once more. His token was destroyed, and he needs a new one.”

“I thought tokens were unique to the Oracle who carries them. What can your token do for him, especially if he is only human?”

“He only lets bits and pieces slip through when he’s…amusing himself with me.” The avoidance of the word “torture” did not go unnoticed. “But from what I gather, he’s been dabbling in some form of magic that has…less than virtuous origins. I think he means to use my token against me to somehow siphon my power.”

“What was the purpose of holding you hostage and amusing himself with you? And me, for that matter.”

“He hurt me for pure revenge, I imagine. Something to do while he was figuring out the magic, and waiting for the amulet. And you, well, I suppose he thought hurting you would also hurt me.” The last sentence was rather gruff and spoken quickly.

“How would hurting me—“ 

“It isn’t important at the moment.” Dean’s curt voice left no room for argument.

After a tense moment, Castiel switched the topic. “What do you suppose his next move is?”

“That’s what concerns me.” Dean stood, and began pacing back and forth in the small space, apparently thinking to himself. He suddenly stopped and turned to face Castiel. “I don’t suppose you know approximately how long I’ve been down here?”

“At least a month. Perhaps closer to six weeks by now.”

“Son of a bitch,” Dean pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “I suspect we’re running out of time. Once Alistair has whatever spell he’s working on ready to go, he’ll waste no time performing it.”

“Alistair cannot remove the pendant from my person, you said so yourself. Wouldn’t he need it to perform any sort of transferring magic?”

Dean turned his back on Castiel, leaning his forehead against the wall and sighing.

“That was not  _ entirely _ accurate,” he said quietly, more to the wall than to Castiel. “In these chains, I’m more or less human. Between the two of us, you’re the only one still protecting that amulet. But it would be hard to protect it…” Dean turned to face him again, his expression grim, “…if you are dead.”

Castiel blinked. “You’re worried that his next move is to take my life, thereby acquiring your token.” Dean nodded.

Strategically, it made sense. Alistair needed Dean’s power and Dean’s token; Castiel was merely the messenger boy in this equation.

“Then I think it’s time we plan our escape,” Castiel said, standing and assuming the tone he used for strategy techniques demonstrations in his classes. “First thing’s first: What do we know, and what do we need?”

Dean looked impressed.

 

* * *

 

Castiel couldn’t help but snicker to himself as he listened to Dean yell a colorful array of profanities through the small window in the cell door. He schooled his face into a look of anxious alertness just as the guard burst through the door, growling furiously and dragging Dean out by his chains, promising that Alistair would teach him some manners and give him a sound beating for having such a rude mouth. Despite the harsh treatment, Dean winked mischievously at Castiel as he was dragged away, still verbally abusing the guard with some of the filthiest epithets Castiel had ever heard in his life.

“I need to be free of these chains,” Dean had said earlier. “Even without them my power will be limited, but I will almost certainly be a liability to you if we try to leave before removing them.”

“There must be a key?”

“There is a guard who stands watch at the far end of this hallway. He brings food once every few days; he keeps the key on a chain with the keys to this door.”

Castiel nodded. That shouldn’t be too challenging of a problem. “My biggest concern is the layout of this place. I’m afraid I was more or less unconscious when they dragged me here.” 

“They’ve been moving me from cell to cell. The only place I know the location of relative to the prison entrance is Alistair’s chamber, because I was brought there first at the time of my capture.”

“Have you been there since?”

“Yes, that’s where he works me over.”

There had been silence. They needed to map the route from their cell to Alistair’s chamber, but they couldn’t leave the cell without alerting the guard, and even if they could, it was more likely that they would end up completely lost. Successfully navigating a maze was challenging, but navigating a maze in total darkness was next to impossible. No, one of them would have to be summoned to Alistair’s chamber.

…Or  _ sent _ there.

“Dean, what if—“

“I’ll go.” Dean gave him a stern look. “I trust you came to the same conclusion: one of us needs to be sent to Alistair. I’ll go.” He put up a hand to stop Castiel’s protests. “Cas, right now you’re expendable. Alistair has no reason to keep you alive anymore.”

As much as he hated to admit it, Dean was right. It would be meaningless if Alistair killed him; Alistair would have Dean’s token and Dean would be back in solitary darkness with no hope of escape. Castiel exhaled through gritted teeth.

“Fine,” he conceded, albeit grouchily.

“If it makes you feel better,” Dean said appeasingly, “I promise to let you heal me when I return.”


	19. Chapter 19

Castiel was startled awake several hours later by the door screeching open. The guards all but threw a limp body onto the unforgiving floor before stomping inside and reattaching his chains to the wall, slamming the cell door shut and locking it once more on their way out.

When he was sure they were gone, he rushed to Dean’s side. 

“Dean? Dean, can you hear me?”

For a terrifying moment, there was silence in the cell save for his own thundering heartbeat. But then Dean groaned long and loud, shifting to press his cheek against the floor. Castiel hurried to warm the hook enough to see by, and returned to Dean’s side. He was moving in an attempt to sit up, but Castiel pushed him with a gentle firmness back against the floor.

“Dean, don’t move for a moment, let me examine the damage…oh,  _ Dean _ .” The name left him in a horrified gasp. Four large bleeding gashes stretched angrily across Dean’s back, interspersed with smaller welts that looked painful but were not open. He had been whipped.

Castiel hastily summoned a small amount of magic into his hands before pressing as carefully as he could along the bloody tears. Dean squirmed and hissed and grunted at his ministrations, but eventually the wounds had been reduced to swollen welts much like the less serious ones, though far larger.

“Sit up slowly,” Castiel advised when Dean made another attempt at getting up. He wobbled as he came to sit on his heels, looking very dizzy but nonetheless triumphant.

“ _ I got it _ , Cas,” he whispered furtively, clapping Castiel on the shoulder with a shaky hand and opening his other palm to reveal a small silver key that bore the same symbols as Dean’s restraints. Castiel couldn’t keep the glee off his face.

“Good,  _ great _ !” 

“And the route, Cas, I know the route. I mapped it visually on the way there. Coming back I couldn’t see very well,” he indicated his face, which was swollen and bleeding in an alarming number of places, “But I kept track of the turns. We can get out of here.”

“That’s great Dean, it really is.” Relieved laughter tried to bubble up and out of him, but Castiel squashed it down. The last thing they needed was a guard coming to examine all the noise.

Castiel got back to work clearing up the more severe of Dean’s injuries. When they were done he was still quite bloody and discolored, but no longer stolen beyond recognition. Almost as soon as he was able, Dean collapsed into unconsciousness, and Castiel waited while he got some well-deserved rest.

Soon they could leave this horrible place and go  _ home _ .

 

* * *

“How are you feeling?” Castiel asked anxiously, when he saw Dean stir and rub at his eyes.

“Like I was trampled by a herd of horses,” Dean answered, sitting up and patting over his clothes. With a soft “aha!” he pulled something out of the waistband of his pants and offered it to Castiel. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t able to grab any of your weapons, but I managed to sneak this out of Alistair’s chamber.”

Castiel took the item from Dean, examining it. It was his thigh holster. The silver dagger was missing from its sheath, but when Castiel turned it over in his hands there was a clinking sound, and he watched as a squat little jar filled with blue-green paste rolled away from him towards Dean.

“What is that?”

Castiel smiled, praying a silent thanks to Hannah and her handiwork. “Something that could become quite useful should our escape plan go wrong,” he said, reaching forward to pick up the jar and replace it in the thigh holster. Across from him, Dean was standing up, and beginning to pace again.

“It won’t take long for the guard to realize the key is missing,” Castiel pointed out.

“Oh, I’m counting on that,” Dean replied quietly, peering through the window, “We’ll need him to open the door and come inside.”

Castiel nodded. “Let’s get those restraints off you.” 

Dean walked over to him and handed him the silver key. When it clicked into place, the sigils on both the wrist cuffs and the key began to glow brightly. Castiel covered Dean’s wrists with his hands to hide as much of the light as he could, and once the light faded he removed his hands to find that the silver cuffs had vanished, along with the key.

Dean’s expression was positively ecstatic; he looked down at his wrists incredulously, flexing his hands and letting out soft, breathy laughs.

“I didn’t realize how heavy they felt…I’ve been in them for so long—“ He looked up at Castiel, his eyes looking a little watery, and yanked him into a hug, squeezing him tight in gratitude. After a moment Castiel was released, and Dean’s happiness was so infectious that he was smiling too.

“Alright, focus,” Dean said, more to himself than Castiel, it seemed. “My power will take some time to be truly useful, and you are still without weapons. How’s your hand-to-hand combat?”

“I’m told my skills are formidable,” Castiel said, his eyes on the chains that were once attached to Dean’s wrist bindings, “But I think I have a better idea…”

He tugged at the chain, unthreading it from the hook in the wall and wrapping it around his hands. He stretched it tight, and raised its temperature until it was glowing dully, a sure sign that it would make quite a harmful weapon. “I think this will do just fine,” he said, grinning complacently at Dean.

From the far end of the hallway came the angry sounds of a guard who had discovered he was missing a very important key, followed promptly by loud stomping that was coming their way. Dean grinned, the mischievous glint back in his eyes and his posture saying that he was ready for a fight. Castiel felt his heartbeat pick up speed as the anticipation of battle thrummed through his system, and his only regret was that his beautiful armor would not see this battle.

They had done enough waiting, enough suffering, enough strategizing. Now it was time to put his skills to their proper use, and fight his way out with Dean.

Dean’s hand signal motioning him into position was unnecessary; Castiel was already moving to hide in the corner where the cell door would hide him once it was open. Dean stood calmly, acting as bait in clear view of the guard.

The footsteps grew closer, heavier. Castiel pulled the chain taught, and waited.


	20. Chapter 20

The guard came slowly up to the cell door, peering at Dean through the window. Dean beckoned him inside with a taunting whistle and a mocking smirk, and the guard snarled angrily, kicking the door wide and barreling his way gracelessly inside.

Castiel lunged from behind the door, tossing the hot chain around the guard's neck and pulling tight. The guard started wailing as soon as the hot metal touched his skin, but Castiel crossed the end of the chains over one another and gave a firm pull, snapping the guard’s neck neatly. He removed his chain and let the body crumple in a heap to the floor.

“Excellent,” Dean commented, looking pleased. Castiel returned his grin before quickly bringing himself back into focus. He peered out of the open cell door, and found the hallway empty.

“The hallway is clear. You know the way, I’ll follow behind. Here.” He stooped to pick up a jagged knife—closer to a shiv, really—from the guard’s waistband, and tossed it to Dean, who caught it neatly. “You’ll at least have something sharper than fists.”

Dean nodded, before exiting the cell into the hallway. Castiel paused to tuck Hannah’s healing ointment into the waistband of his pants, and then followed Dean out, staying close on his heels. They moved as quickly and silently as they could, keeping their bodies low and their feet light. At the end of the hallway Dean leaned back against the wall, and Castiel followed suit while Dean peered careful around the corner. 

They couldn’t risk speaking for now; instead Dean jerked his hand to signal that they should move on. Castiel followed him to the right, walking backwards for a moment until he was convinced the hallway leading in the other direction was unoccupied. 

This went on for several minutes; another right, left, right, straight, left, another left. No guards occupied these hallways, but they could be heard from behind closed doors here and there, their brutish laughing or crude jeering covering Dean and Castiel’s soft footsteps.

At the next corner, Dean peered around as normal but quickly jerked his head back. He held up two fingers to Castiel, indicating that there were two guards down this hallway. They couldn’t be given a chance to make too much noise, lest they draw other guards—or worse, Alistair—to the scene. After a moment of thought, Castiel mimed his plan to Dean, who nodded, and they started off down the hallway.

Dean came up behind the closer guard, clapping a hand over his mouth as he simultaneously slid the shiv into his lower back, severing the spine. The other guard turned to look and opened his mouth to yell, but Castiel was ready for him. He swung his arm down and back up, causing the chain to flick upwards violently, striking the second guard in a very forceful uppercut. 

They paused momentarily to ensure that no one was on their way to investigate before continuing on. After the next right turn, Castiel’s heart beat faster and his stomach swooped in anticipation. He could see the stairs leading upwards to the outside world. He made to hurry forward, but Dean stopped him with an arm across his chest. When he saw Castiel’s puzzled expression, he mouthed  _ Alistair’s chamber _ , and jerked his shiv towards the end of the hallway, a short way beyond the stairs. 

Castiel swallowed anxiously as they started off, slower than they had been moving previously. It took them minutes to reach the bottom of the stone steps, but with freedom so close it felt like hours. They took it slow: one foot after the other, rise the next step, pause, repeat.

Castiel’s foot was just leaving the sixth step when a nasally drawl echoed towards them.

“Sneaking out, are we boys?” Alistair’s footsteps were slow and deliberate as he came down the hallway from his chamber. “I’m insulted that you didn’t think to invite me.”

Castiel looked back over his shoulder just in time to see Alistair appear at the base of the steps, the Angel Blade gripped tightly in his fist and a look of pure fury on his face.

“ _ Run! _ ” Dean yelled from in front of him before thundering up the stairs, all attempts to stay quiet and hidden pointless now. Castiel raced after them, nearly slipping twice on the wet stone. Behind them, Alistair roared his anger as he ascended the stairs behind them. Suddenly Dean disappeared around a bend, and Castiel realized joyously that they had reached the top. His momentary lack of attention cost him; before he could fully make the turn, he heard something sail through the air, and then there was pain tearing through him from just under his left shoulder blade.

He cried out, the shock slowing him momentarily before Dean was tugging frantically at his arm, and they were off again, racing out of the stone cave and onto the grass, blinking dazedly in the bright glow of a setting sun. Castiel fell to his knees, his back hunching in pain. He reached a shaking hand behind himself to grip the object that was still lodged in his back. With a shout he ripped it free, and when he brought his hand back around he was holding his own silver dagger. 

“Sam!”

Castiel followed shakily as Dean rushed to the edge of the trees. Sam was still a ways back, and he looked as if to be pressing and banging his fists against an invisible wall.

The warding sigils; Sam couldn’t get any closer, and judging by the way Dean was jamming his shoulder angrily against air, Dean couldn’t get through to Sam either.

Behind them, Alistair cackled evilly, exiting the cave’s mouth and bearing down on them. “How touching, what a wonderful family reunion this will be,” he drawled, flicking his wrist as though to beckon guests inside a house. “Join us Sam, join us!” 

Sam stumbled through where he’d been leaning against the barriers. Now that they were gone he rushed forward, clasping Dean’s shoulders and studying him.

“Your father was weak, and didn’t appreciate the beauty of his own power,” Alistair was saying, drawing still nearer. Castiel wrapped his chain around his fist, and Sam drew the knife from the sash at his waist. Dean settled into a fighting stance with his shiv at the ready. “He didn’t deserve it, so I took it from him, and now, I’m going to take it from you!”

He sped towards them, swinging his arm in an arch above his head and bringing the Angel Blade crashing down towards Dean.


	21. Chapter 21

Castiel and Sam moved simultaneously to flank Alistair, while Dean tucked into a roll just in time to avoid the Angel Blade. While Alistair had his back to him, Castiel took a moment to reheat the chains before whirling them around his head and bringing his arm arching downwards, so that the hot links flashed against Alistair’s legs. Sam jumped inwards with a forward thrust, missing when Alistair leaned away toward Dean, who managed to slash his arm with the shiv before Alistair had jumped away again.

It was a flurry of limbs and shining metal clinking against more shining metal. Castiel felt himself sink into the rhythm of battle, where he let his body fight with muscle memory, acting almost entirely without conscious thought. He whirled his chain again as Alistair raised the Angel Blade high, and caught the chain around it, tugging Alistair almost off-balance. Alistair snarled at him and yanked the Angel Blade away, and Castiel did not release the chain quickly enough. He fell forward towards Alistair with the force of the pull, and saw Alistair aim his arm upwards as if it were happening in slow motion.

The Angel Blade ripped through his stomach with a sickening squelch. Castiel’s insides might as well have been paper for all the resistance they put up against his own favorite weapon, and for a moment he couldn’t feel a thing.

_ It really is rather angelic looking, _ he thought dully, watching the burst of white light shine around the point of impact.

And then there was excruciating pain, worse than anything he could have ever imagined in his life. Blood bubbled up in his throat, and instead of screaming he could only splutter and cough, dripping red from his mouth and staring unseeingly in front of himself. Through the rushing sounds in his ears, he heard Dean’s angry, panicked yell.

“No,  _ Cas!” _

It felt a thousand times worse when Alistair dragged the blade back out of his body, releasing a torrent of blood from his body. He couldn’t move. He tried to say Dean’s name but the only thing that came out was more blood, and he fell, landing heavily in Sam’s large arms.

In front of him, Dean was attacking Alistair with new vigor, hacking and slashing mindlessly with the shiv, a truly useless weapon against the Angel Blade. Alistair brought the blade above his head and slashed downwards.

“Dean, watch out!” Sam called out in panic, even as he scrambled to put enough pressure on Castiel’s wound to stop the bleeding.

But Dean didn’t duck out of the way this time. He seemed to have forgotten how small the shiv was, fighting now on instinct. He brought the shiv in front of him as though it were a sword, meaning to parry Alistair’s downswing, but with a clanging snap the Angel Blade cut the shiv in half, slashing a jagged path over Dean’s chest and stomach. Dean cried out in agony, and Alistair brought the blade swinging down a second time, and a third, leaving Dean’s chest in ribbons and his life fading fast. Dean fell to his knees, and Alistair raised the blade one more time.

“You’re as pathetic as your father was,” Alistair bit out, looking down at Dean’s bowed head, “Your land will be glad to be rid of you.” His arm came swinging down a fourth time.

Castiel watched through bleary eyes as Dean’s hand lashed out, grabbing Alistair’s wrist and stopping his attack. Dean glared all of his rage back up at Alistair, biting out through his teeth, “The  _ world  _ will be glad to be rid of you.” 

Alistair grunted in pain as Dean put more and more pressure on his wrist, until finally the Angel Blade fell from his fingers, into Dean’s waiting left hand. In one swift motion, he spun the knife around in his fist and thrust it deep into Alistair’s stomach, as Alistair had done to Castiel. Alistair gasped and choked, but Dean did not stop there. Instead, he dragged it upwards deliberately slowly as far as he could reach, staring all the while into Alistair’s hateful eyes. Alistair stumbled backwards and fell, blood and pieces of his organs spilling out of his gut.

Alistair and Dean fell forward at the same time, hitting the ground with loud thuds.

Sam dragged Castiel to Dean as fast as he could manage, laying Castiel on his back and pressing Castiel’s hands into his wound. Castiel heard his echoey voice instruct him to keep pressure on the opening. Instead, he removed one of his hands to fish in his waistband for Hannah’s healing mixture; she had said it would heal wounds like this. He fished it out as Sam turned Dean over and began slapping him in the face, pleading with him to wake up.

“No, Dean,  _ no,  _ you can’t leave me, you can’t die like father did,  _ Dean please— _ “

Castiel turned his head to see. Blood poured out of the threaded remains of Dean’s chest and stomach, and his face had gone scarily white. He was dying.

Dean was  _ dying _ .

Dean couldn’t die, after all this, after how far they’d come. They’d reached freedom, Dean was supposed to have a happy ending now that he was out of that dark prison. But there he was, dying.

_ Success or death _ . Castiel had decided before he set out that those were his only two options. He would either bring Dean to safety, or die trying. Dean still hadn’t been saved, but Castiel wasn’t dead yet either. There was still time. He rolled over onto his side, grunting as his sliced insides jostled. With one hand still on his stomach and the other hand clutching Hannah’s medicine, he began to force himself forward, closing the short distance to Dean.

The land couldn’t lose Dean.

There was only enough medicine for one use, Hannah had said. He took a ragged breath and removed the hand over his stomach, bring it up to twist the lid off of the jar. His hands were slippery with blood, and he struggled for a moment before it popped off. 

_ He _ couldn’t lose Dean.

He raised his head as best he could, leaning forward so he could see what he was doing. With a shaking hand, he tipped the contents of the jar over Dean’s torso, covering as much area as his limited range of motion would allow. The medicine began to glow brightly, and Dean stirred. He could hear Sam’s hopeful voice, but couldn’t make out any of the words; the rushing in his ears was too great, and he was dizzy from blood loss.

_ Success AND death, then, _ Castiel amended.

His vision went black, and he fell forward, his cheek coming to rest against Dean’s blood-soaked shoulder.


	22. Chapter 22

The strangest thing about regaining consciousness, Castiel mused, was that there was no distinction between the different types of things one might regain consciousness  _ from _ . Whether he had fainted, had the lights knocked out of him, or simply fallen asleep did not matter—coming back to the conscious world always involved the same vague, dreamlike state, followed by a momentary feeling that nothing was wrong in the world, culminating finally in the realization that he had been unconscious, and was now awake. 

It was in that hazy middle moment that Castiel relished in the soft linens cushioning him, inhaled deeply the smell of rain water and sandalwood, pressed himself tighter into the thick cocoon of warm blankets that cradled him.

But then the moment was gone, and once Castiel remembered  _ how _ he had lost consciousness, he became surprised that he was waking up at all. He tried to sit up but was stopped by a stabbing pain in his torso, and all at once the rest of his aches came rushing back to him. He groaned and rose to lean back on his forearms, blinking until his vision cleared and the room around him sharpened.

He was in a bedroom, lying on a large bed that was pressed neatly into an alcove. Familiar precious stones were scattered about the sandstone walls, and a single torch threw gentle light across the entryway on the left side of the room. The ambiance was quite familiar; Castiel couldn’t help but be reminded of Dean’s shrine.

As if on cue, Dean came through the entryway holding a wooden cup in one hand and reading from a tome that sat in the other. He looked up when he heard Castiel shift, and shut his book, hurrying to the bedside.

“Cas, hey, just stay where you are, alright? Sam and I were able to patch you up, but you still need rest. Here.” Dean guided the wooden cup to Castiel’s mouth, tipping it so that warm liquid  lapped at Castiel’s lower lip. “Drink this, it helps.” His voice was deep and familiar, and very gentle.

Castiel drank. It tasted faintly of honey, and it felt wonderful sliding over Castiel’s dry throat. When he finished, Dean placed the cup somewhere off to the side, out of Castiel’s field of vision. He pressed back against Castiel’s shoulder, coaxing him to lie down again.

“Go back to sleep, Cas. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Castiel blinked blearily up at Dean. His vision was fuzzy around the edges again, but he could tell that Dean looked different. He wasn’t covered in grime or blood anymore; he looked soft and warm, and his whole being glowed softly. His peridot eyes were especially comforting.

_ Beautiful,  _ Castiel thought, not realizing he had said it aloud. He saw the corners of Dean’s mouth twitch up into the beginnings of a smile, and then he was sinking back into unconsciousness.

 

* * *

 

The next time Castiel woke up, the torch in the doorway had been put out and the sun shone through a window high above the bed, sending natural light bouncing off the colorful gems littering the walls. To his relief, many of his aches had vanished entirely and he was able to sit up at the edge of the bed, though there was still a twinge in his stomach if he moved too suddenly.

He stood slowly, and took stock of himself. Dean’s amulet still hung around his neck, but he was no longer wearing his own clothes; he had been changed into soft white pants that ended just below his knee, and his shirt had been removed entirely. His arms and legs bore a smattering of shallow, nearly-healed cuts and one or two bruises, but the most noticeable was a large jagged scar just under his solar plexus, where he had been impaled on the Angel Blade. The memory alone was enough to bring about another twinge of pain.

He cast about for his clothes, but couldn’t find them. Instead, he spotted a neatly folded cloth on a small table near the bed. On top of it was a small parchment that read  _ “Your clothes were well beyond saving. Feel free to wear this instead.” _

Castiel unfolded the cloth. It was a tunic very similar to the one he had seen Sam wear, except that this one was a vivid sapphire blue. Castiel tugged it on, smoothing his hands almost reverently over the soft material. 

He was clearly in Dean’s shrine, but he’d never been in this room before. He peered out of the entryway, seeing nothing but a long hallway that he hoped would take him to the main chamber.

He found Dean sitting in his throne, reading from the same book Castiel had seen earlier, and he couldn’t help but smile. The fires on either side of Dean were lit, and they cast a warm glow over the deep red of Dean’s tunic. Behind him, the decorated halo glittered happily, and Castiel noticed that Dean’s face was adorned by jewelry mirroring the halo’s design: a circlet of pearls woven around thin gold chains, with a circular piece in the center of his forehead bearing the same precious stones as were in the halo. Another small piece of gold fell over the straight slope of his nose, and thin gold chains brushed against his cheeks, coming to loop behind his ears.

He would have looked every bit as regal and fantastic as Castiel had imagined he would, except that he was hunched over his tome with his head propped up by a fist, with one leg tucked under him and the other leg thrown lazily over the armrest. Castiel chuckled; even with his power restored, Dean hadn’t lost his sliver of humanity. 

Dean looked up when he laughed, smiling when he saw Castiel up and about.

“The tunic suits you,” he said, putting his book beside him and walking towards Castiel. “It matches your eyes.”

Castiel flushed. “Thank you. Not just for this,” he said, indicating the tunic, “but for healing me. And for your generosity. Is Sam here? I’d like to thank him too.”

Dean shook his head. “He went back to his shrine once you were stable, I’m afraid. He’d been gone long enough.”

Castiel nodded. He’d have to thank Sam another time.

“I imagine you’re glad to be home,” Castiel said, struggling to find things to talk about now that there were not strategies to discuss or escape routes to plan.

“I am,” Dean replied, looking fond. “But I’m sure you’d like to go home too.” He walked back towards the middle of the room, conjuring a table with wonderful smelling food, like Sam had done for him. “Stay with me tonight,” Dean said, although it sounded more pleading than decisive. “And tomorrow, I will bring you home.”

Castiel smiled, and followed Dean to the table for supper.


	23. Chapter 23

“Is there a way to contact Anna?” Castiel asked, over a warm mug of the same honey-reminiscent drink Dean had brought him earlier. “I imagine it would bring her and everyone else comfort to know you were safe.” 

Dean beckoned him forward, and reached for his token when Castiel was near enough. “This acts as a link to my people,” he explained, letting it sit delicately in his open hand. “Prophets can use it to receive messages, and I can use it to send messages, so long as one party has it in their possession.” He closed his fingers around it. “What would you like me to tell Anna?”

 

* * *

 

Far away in Prophet’s Hollow, Anna paused mid-sentence, looking away from the book in her lap and staring off into the distance, completely silent. Next to her, Hael waited patiently. It was not uncommon for a prophet to have a vision in the middle of performing another task. 

“What is it?” she asked, once Anna’s eyes had lost their glazed appearance. Anna’s smile was beatific as she tossed the book she’d been holding carelessly to the side, clasping Hael’s hands in her own.

“Dean is saved!” she breathed, before rising and hurrying out of the room. 

She sprinted towards the village, ignoring the confused looks she got as she raced through the market. It seemed to take an age to reach Naomi’s house, but then she was knocking insistently at the door.

Naomi pulled the door open, dusting her ingredient-splashed apron and looking confused at the fuss.

“Anna?” she asked, “Is everything al—“

“It’s Castiel,” she half-laughed, still trying to catch her breath. “He’s coming home.”

 

* * *

 

That night, sprawled comfortably on one half of Dean’s bed, Castiel lay on his side and watched the steady rise and fall of Dean’s chest, unable to fall asleep himself.

After so much traveling and fighting and unpleasantness, it was strange to think of going home. He had never thought of his life prior to leaving home dull, but he had gotten so used to the traveling, to sleeping in uncomfortable places and wondering when he would next eat or bathe—excluding Dean and Sam’s hospitality, of course. He was used to looking over his shoulder now, waiting for the next battle, the next challenge, the next event that caused his heart to speed up in anticipation.

Not that the past two months had been a particularly comfortable life, but he had valued the sense of purpose, the knowledge that he was more than just another human in a world of many. He might not necessarily miss the discomforts of being on an important mission, but he’d achieved the impossible; typical day-to-day activities seemed so flat in the wake of spending his time rescuing kidnapped Oracles.

He would be glad to see his friends again though. He would hug Hannah especially tight, just to be sure she was real.

Castiel studied Dean’s profile. Would other people seem boring, now that he’d spent time in the company of an Oracle? How would it feel to be back at the school, teaching students again? Would he lose that sense of purpose? Would he spend the rest of his days longing to be back in the past with Dean, forming strategies and fighting world-saving battles?

Dean would surely soon forget him, or at best keep him only as a fond memory of a man who saved him once. Oracles lived ages longer than humans. Who was Castiel, other than a few centuries of existence in comparison to someone like Dean?

Dean’s mouth twitched upwards into a cheeky grin, though his eyes remained closed. “I can hear you thinking,” he said softly, teasingly. He turned towards Castiel, green eyes peering at him questioningly through the moonlight.

Castiel tried to decide which question to ask, but they were all jumbled inside his head. 

“Why me?” was what came out eventually, just above a whisper.

Dean turned fully onto his side to face Castiel, his face becoming more serious.

“Cas,” he said, pausing as if to decide on the best words. “I’ve known you since the day you were born.” Castiel was puzzled, but did not interrupt. “When you first came to life, I was provided a vision. It was the same vision Anna saw, when she first held you. I saw your life unfold, saw you laugh and play and learn.” Dean smiled fondly, before his face fell as he continued, “But I also saw the darkness that was to envelop your life later on.”

Castiel’s eyebrows rose. His mother had never told him that part of the prophecy, when he’d asked almost eight decades ago.

“There was no way of knowing precisely what would happen to you, but I knew it wouldn’t be good. I was confused when it was over, because it’s very uncommon for Oracles to have visions about any one human. Sam helped me figure out why you’d been shown to me.” Dean swallowed, looking suddenly nervous. “What we discovered was that Oracles are only shown the prophecies of a particular human when…when they are to share a special bond with one another.”

Castiel could only blink, trying to process this new information. Dean continued, but he seemed too embarrassed to meet Castiel’s eyes anymore. Instead he turned onto his back stared at the ceiling while he talked.

“I still didn’t understand what that really meant, not until the night I was captured. When Alistair was done with me that first night, that’s when I knew why your prophecy was black and unknown towards the end; not even the Gods knew if you would succeed. I contacted Anna that night, and she sent you to find me. It was always you Cas, it always had to be.”

Dean finally met his eyes again. Castiel thought he looked almost afraid of…rejection. Surely his eyes were playing tricks.

“But, wait,” he said after a moment, his brow furrowing, “why didn’t you tell Anna to send me straight off?”

Dean smiled ruefully. “I didn’t know your name. I only learned it when a guard came in to report to Alistair that you had killed his shifter.”

“I see. So we share a…profound bond?”

Dean nodded. Castiel shifted his hand underneath the blankets, sliding over the linens until he found Dean’s hand. Wordlessly, he hooked his pointer and middle fingers around Dean’s before sighing and closing his eyes, feeling very tired all of a sudden.

Dean said nothing more. Minutes later Castiel was almost asleep before a final thought occurred to him.

“I feel lucky, you know,” he murmured, “that it had to be me.”

Under the covers, Dean’s fingers curled tighter around his own.


	24. Chapter 24

In the morning, Dean and Castiel set about getting ready to leave the shrine. Castiel took one last look at the beautiful place he was unlikely to ever see again, committing it to memory. They started for the exit and had made it halfway down the entrance hallway, when Dean let out a soft “oh!” and hurried back into the shrine, calling over his shoulder that he would be just a minute. When he returned, he was carrying—

“My armor!” Castiel’s face broke out in a wide smile; he’d thought it would be lost to the cave forever.

Dean nodded, looking pleased. “And your blade. I went back to fetch them from the cave; they looked like things you would miss.”

Castiel fitted his armor over the blue tunic he still wore. The metal glinted in the sunlight, and Castiel relished in its familiar weight and shape. He took the Angel Blade from Dean and slid it into its sheath, still smiling brightly.

It was no less disorienting leaving the shrine than it had been entering it. At the top of the stairs Castiel was surrounded by sandstone walls, and the next step down he was surrounded only by misty forest air, the place behind him a blank slate of worn, cracked stone once more.

He truly would miss this place.

“Ready to go?” Dean stood in front of him, first two fingers poised to press against his forehead and teleport them back to Castiel’s home. Castiel scrunched his face in displeasure; nice as it was in terms of time saved, he really disliked the feeling of being yanked through time and space. Dean laughed at his expression.

“Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it,” he reassured, though Castiel wondered when Dean thought he might be teleporting anywhere again after today.

There was a soft pressure on his forehead followed by a sharp moment of intense compression, and then he and Dean were standing just inside the forest, the village visible in the distance. Castiel was overwhelmed by a sudden homesickness he hadn’t realized he had felt until now. Anna, Naomi, and Hannah stood outside the forest a few hundred yard to the left, peering hopefully into the trees.

Castiel and Dean started towards them, and when Naomi spotted them she ran through the first row of trees and threw herself into Castiel’s arms. He spun her around, burying his face in her shoulder and inhaling the familiar smell of his mother. She said over and over again how glad she was to see him, how proud of him she was, and clung to him as they exited the forest, only letting him go when Hannah came forward for a hug of her own. Castiel would tell her all about the shifter later, once things had settled. Anna was smiling brightly, and she hugged him too, though less familiarly than Hannah and Naomi had done.

Dean hung back, watching the reunion with a fond expression on his face. Castiel beckoned him forward, and he came hesitantly.

“Allow me to introduce our Oracle, Dean.” 

Their reactions were almost comical. All three stared unabashedly, even Anna, experienced prophet though she was. Naomi remembered herself first, dropping into a curtsy, but Dean lead her back up with a gentle hand underneath her elbow. 

“No need for that,” he said, aiming a charming smile at her.

“Castiel, I’m sure you’d like to return to your home and rest,” Anna said. “The whole land is indebted to you, and I am especially proud. Tonight, we will celebrate your return, and the safe return of Dean.”

Castiel nodded, and Dean turned once more to Naomi.

“It’s been a long time since I came here myself,” he said, offering his arm to Naomi. “While we wait for nightfall, would you give me a tour of the town?” Naomi took his arm delicately, looking starstruck, and began to lead him away. Castiel chuckled as they went—he knew that Dean had eased his way into Naomi’s heart already.

He and Hannah returned to his home, and she sat on his bed while he removed his armor and took in the sight and smell of his bedroom. Finally, he sat down with her, and she sat up straighter, clearly anticipating a story.

“I have much to tell you, Hannah. I’ll start with the shifter…”

 

* * *

 

It was truly incredible how quickly the people of this land could put a festival together. By sunset the buildings were decorated with bright banners, and the breeze carried the smells of good food around the town. Dean and Castiel stayed nearby each other for most of the evening, talking to people and retelling the stories of their adventures over and over again, until even the jugs of warm liquor could not soothe their throats.

Castiel eventually disentangled himself from the masses and wandered out to the stream. Night had fallen, and soft pinpricks of light were scattered about, bouncing off the surface of the water and creating a soft ambiance in harmony with the gentle wind that rustled the tree branches. Castiel took a seat on a the grass near the water, and watched the clear stream trickle over the rocks below, enjoying the peace and quiet.

“I wondered where you’d gone.” Dean’s voice came from behind him, and though he had come outside to seek solitude, Dean’s presence was welcome. Dean sat beside him in the grass.

“I just needed a bit of quiet time,” Castiel explained.

“Me as well. I haven’t been around so many people in centuries; I no longer know how to handle all the attention.”

Castiel smiled. “Can you really blame them? You’re fascinating.” Dean chuckled, and they settled into a comfortable silence.

“Hey Cas,” Dean said softly, a few minutes later, “I never thanked you, for coming to my rescue. In that dark prison, I only found the will to stay strong because I was hopeful that you’d reach me. You have no idea the relief I felt, when you finally arrived.”

“Dean…”

“I mean it. I needed you, and you came. That meant a lot to me.” He averted his eyes—a nervous gesture, Castiel had come to understand. “I have to return to my shrine after tonight,” Dean continued, and Castiel suddenly felt quite melancholy. “Truthfully, I imagine it will feel very lonely without you there.”

“You’ll forget me,” Castiel tried to assure him. “You can put the past few months behind you.”

Dean smiled. “I could never forget you, Cas,” he said, “which is why—“ He paused to rummage for something in his pocket, before holding his closed hand out to Castiel and continuing, “I wanted to give you this.”

Dean opened his hand, and on his palm sat a single purple flower, quite alive despite having been plucked from its stem, its pointed petals glimmering brightly silver in the moonlight. Castiel took it gingerly, feeling the soft waxy petals beneath his fingertips.

“One of your flowers?”

Dean nodded, meeting his eyes. “So that I can always find my way home.”

Castiel forgot how to breathe, and his vision blurred as his eyes moistened. At a loss for what to say, he pressed forward to leave a soft kiss against Dean’s smooth cheek. He pulled away, but Dean stopped him with a gentle hand cupped against his jaw, and pulled him back to kiss him on the mouth. Castiel felt warmth sweep over him, and he clung to Dean, careful not to crush the precious flower between them.

They returned to the village soon after, Castiel’s fingers hooked around Dean’s.

The End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once again to my incredible beta and fabulous artist! This was so stressful, but I'm thrilled with the final product, and I hope you are too. =]


End file.
